Today's Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment is going to decide the next President of the United States and that is John McCain.
The fact that the ruling was not 9-to-0 but only five-to-four means that one more leftist on the Supreme Court and the people's right to defend themselves would have been abolished.
If I were McCain, I'd run an ad day and night for the next 90 days saying simply: the Four leftist judges voted to take away your right to protect yourself. One more and they would have succeeded. The next president will nominate one, two or even three Supreme Court justices, your freedom -- and your family's safety -- lies in the balance.
I'd probably run another ad that said "the Liberals on the Supreme Court don't think child rapists should be eligible for the death penalty. Barack Obama is the single most leftist of all United States Senators. Do you want more judges like those who think child rape isn't so bad?"
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1 – 200 of 348 Newer› Newest»Psychet has a point this time other than on his head.
There are enough simple dicks in America who would buy this idiot's babbling points to make some difference.
Fortunately, they're already in McCain's nuthouse, so it probably won't be much difference...especially with the Dow under eleven...
no, not eleven thousand.
ava,
Why all the name calling (simple d*cks, babbling points, idiot, nuthouse)?
Don't you have any worthwhile argument on the issues of gun rights, child rape, or death penalty?
It's people like you that make me wonder why we should listen to people like you.
Actually, of course, I have all the worthwhile arguments. Is anonymous saying I should repeat them for it as though it were a rational entity?
Wouldn't wasting time like that make me as simple as it is?
You have them but won't "repeat" them? You never presented them in the first place.
Why would it be wasting time to argue the issues?
Why is it not wasting time to engage in namecalling?
You complex, smart people sure make it hard for us simple ones to come around to your enlightened viewpoint.
The problem is that your enlightened viewpoint makes no sense. That's why you can't and won't argue it.
The problem is that your enlightened viewpoint makes no sense. That's why you can't and won't argue it.
You're right in an unintended way. It makes no sense to you because you are too simple to understand it...so it certainly is pointless to argue it.
However, it is fun to bludgeon you over your pin heads with the results of your policies from time to time:
Hoover Bush Party Giving US Another DEPRESSION.
MARKET SNAPSHOT: U.S. Stocks Plunge; Worst June For Dow Since 1930
CNN June 26, 2008
U.S. stocks fell sharply Thursday with the blue-chip index enduring its worst June so far since 1930, and plunging to its lowest finish since Sept. 11, 2006, after getting slammed hard as crude soared to new highs and Goldman Sachs disparaged U.S. brokers and advised selling General Motors Corp.
"We're going to move in the opposite direction of oil, and General Motors is going to go out of business, at least according to Goldman Sachs," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) tumbled 358.41 points, or 3%, to 11, 453.42, leaving it down nearly 1,200 points, or 9.4%, for the month, with two trading days yet to go. As things stand, the month is the worst June so far since 1930 when the index declined 17.72%.
"It was the middle of March that the Bear Stearns debacle became public, sending the Dow to a low of 11,731. That level was broken within the first minute of trading today," wrote Kathy Lien, chief strategist of DailyFX.com.
Cautious outlooks from Research In Motion Ltd., Oracle Corp. and Nike Inc. added to the gloom.
General Motors (GM) weighed most heavily on the blue chips, down 10.8%, after Goldman Sachs told clients to unload their positions in the face of the deteriorating automotive climate. .
All of the Dow's 30 components closed in negative territory.
"The real problem is even though [the] Fed attempted to be more hawkish, it was not supportive enough of the dollar," Hogan said.
Crude-oil futures climbed to new heights, as weakness in the U.S. dollar, influenced by the Federal Reserve's decision to stand pat on interest rates, sent prices past $140 a barrel.
You again?
You put this same Doomsday piece up on my blog earlier. Twice.
Do you go around right-wing blogs with a bunch of these posters rolled up under your arm to plaster the walls of the commentary section with?
You're like Lee Harvey Oswald handing out revolutionary pamphlets on a streetcorner in Dallas.
What does any of that have to do with the topic of the blog post?
Oh, McCain wins on gun control!!!
What an astonishingly parochial buffoon.
No wonder this is a destination of sorts for liberals watching in fascination the rigor mortis of the reich's corpse.
The trolls are here under Alinksy Rule #5. They are NOT here to provide a 'rational discussion'. There Simpletons... else they'd be conservatives w/o a need to follow Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.
btw - the beamish phenomena is currently sweeping the nation and once the Obama tide ebbs back out to sea, it should carry a lot of the medical waste back out to sea with it..
"There (sic) Simpletons..."
Well, somebody's a simpleton.
Oh, was that supposed to be capitalized?
Why are grade schoolers allowed on here?
He's certainly right about no one being here to provide a rational discussion, though.
I mean, I certainly wouldn't think of trying it.
That would take a real fool.
I see my secretarial staff is feeling useful again! We aim to please.
Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve's credibility crumbles
US central bank accused of unleashing an inflation shock that will rock financial markets, reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Barclays Capital has advised clients to batten down the hatches for a worldwide financial storm, warning that the US Federal Reserve has allowed the inflation genie out of the bottle and let its credibility fall "below zero".
"We're in a nasty environment," said Tim Bond, the bank's chief equity strategist. "There is an inflation shock underway. This is going to be very negative for financial assets. We are going into tortoise mood and are retreating into our shell. Investors will do well if they can preserve their wealth."
Barclays Capital said in its closely-watched Global Outlook that US headline inflation would hit 5.5pc by August and the Fed will have to raise interest rates six times by the end of next year to prevent a wage-spiral. If it hesitates, the bond markets will take matters into their own hands. "This is the first test for central banks in 30 years and they have fluffed it. They have zero credibility, and the Fed is negative if that's possible. It has lost all credibility," said Mr Bond.
Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve's credibility crumbles
Why is it crumbling? Ask a Democrat with an "election" on his mind...
The U.S. Senate confirmed a career community banker to the Federal Reserve Board on Friday, but left two other Bush nominees languishing in a compromise that brings the central bank only partway to full strength at a time of unusual economic stress.
Without dissent, the Democratic-led Senate approved the nomination of Elizabeth Duke, chief operating officer at TowneBank in Portsmouth, Virginia, to serve at the Fed as part of a deal reached with the White House on dozens of President George W. Bush's nominees to a variety of federal posts.
The action may give Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a valuable ally on interest-rate policy at a difficult juncture. With commodities prices soaring, Bernanke has faced several dissents in recent months from regional Fed bank presidents favoring higher rates.
However, the Senate declined to act on two other Fed nominees: Larry Klane, a former executive at Capital One Financial Corp, and current Fed Governor Randall Kroszner, who can serve until replaced even though his term has expired.
The three nominees have been caught in an election-year deadlock. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat whose panel has jurisdiction over the nominations, had held them up in an apparent bid to keep the positions open for the next president to fill.
Some analysts had warned against leaving the central bank board -- the epicenter of U.S. monetary policy-making and a key financial market regulator -- short-staffed at a time the economy is at risk of recession, inflation is soaring and financial markets teetering.
"Some of the senators had seemed to be taking more of a foot-dragging approach," said Kim Rupert, managing director of global fixed income analysis at Action Economics LLC in San Francisco. "I think they kind of discovered that that probably was not a good idea for the Fed at this point in time ... so they got their act together."
Please, only adults and serious people.
That leaves you out.
Next!
Libertarian Barr Says GOP Is Played Out
By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, a former Georgia congressman, said today that the Republican Party has utterly failed to present a "new program, new leadership or vision."
"What's wrong with John McCain is symptomatic of what's wrong with the Republican Party in these first years of the 21st century," Barr said on "Fox News Sunday." "They talk one thing but do something different, and that's become very obvious to the American people."
Barr said that he tends to agree with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on issues of civil liberties, while he tends to agree with McCain, a senator from Arizona, on issues of government spending and taxation.
"Neither of these candidates is talking about the deep cuts in government spending and returning power to the people that we are," Barr said.
Naturally, Evan leaves out the tiny little fact that Obama supported the Supreme Court decision in DC V. Heller (which overturned the Capitol's gun ban) and has stated that he opposes the decision reached in Kennedy V. Louisiana (which outlawed the death penalty for child rape cases in which no loss of life occured). He's taken a lot of heat on the left for both of those stances, but of course that doesn't make one bit of a difference to a demagogue with as poor a grasp of the facts as Evan, who's interested less in truth and more in demonizing people who disagree with him. By that standard, this entry is up to par with every single other entry you've ever posted - worthless nonsense.
Los Angeles, CA - It was reported this morning that the famous blogger and internet pundit Evan Sayet has stated that Barrack Obama is a doo-doo head and is going to totally lose this November.
Well that makes it official.
Evan 20, trolls 0.
if pschet didn't have trolls, he wouldn't have anything
no one bothers with him but those who come for freak show sport
Evan 21 trolls 0...
Gee, Barr said THAT? We'd ALL better sit up and listen, right? O
another quotes CNN here...!! AH, that great arbiter of TRUTH!
such enlightenment, huh?
Evan 22 Trollz 0
Evan 23 Trolls 0
One week after Hillary Clinton made a public show of unity with Barack Obama, a new survey suggests supporters of the New York senator are increasingly less likely to follow her lead.
A growing number of Clinton supporters say they may stay home in November instead of casting their ballot for Obama, a clear sign the party has yet to coalesce around the Illinois senator four weeks after the most prolonged and at times divisive primary race in modern American history came to a close.
According to a new survey from CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation, the number of Clinton supporters who plan to defect to John McCain's camp is down from one month ago, but in what could be an ominous sign for Obama as he seeks to unify the party, a growing number of them say they may not vote at all.
In a CNN/ORC survey conducted in early June, entirely before the New York senator officially ended her White House bid, 22 percent of Clinton supporters said they would not vote at all if Obama was the party's nominee. Now close to a third say they will stay home. In all, only 54 percent of Clinton backers say they plan on voting for Obama.
More anti-war figures are voicing their opinions about contradictory and confusing statements regarding Iraq made Thursday by presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama, and the news is clearly not good for his campaign.
One such concerned party is Tom Hayden, the famed ex-husband of Jane Fonda who, along with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, was part of the Chicago Seven that incited riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Forty years later, Hayden wrote a strong rebuke of Obama's suddenly fluctuating position on the Iraq war that should garner a lot of media attention given its publication at the left-leaning Huffington Post; the title alone should give folks a sense of the tightrope the junior senator from Illinois is walking concerning this issue -- "No Retreat: If you Want to Win, Stop the War! Barack at Risk" (emphasis added throughout):
Call him slippery or nuanced, Barack Obama's core position on Iraq has always been more ambiguous than audacious. Now it is catching up with him as his latest remarks are questioned by the Republicans, the mainstream media, and the antiwar movement. He could put his candidacy at risk if his audacity continues to shrivel. [...]
The most shocking aspect of Samantha Powers' forced resignation earlier this year was not that she called Hillary Clinton a "monster" off-camera, but that she flatly stated that Obama would review his whole position on Iraq once becoming president. Again, no one in the media or rival campaigns questioned whether this assertion by Powers was true. Since Obama credited Powers with helping for months in writing his book, The Audacity of Hope, her comments on his inner thinking should have been pounced upon by the pundits.
Another Democrat gets caught taking a sweetheart mortgage, and the Democrat, his bank and the left again insist: Nothing to see here. Only this time, the Democrat is presidential nominee Barack Obama, who scant months after his election to the Senate secured with his wife a $1.32 million mortgage, discounted by three-eighths of a point, from Northern Trust Bank of Illinois.
The cut-rate mortgage on their $1.65 million mansion in Chicago will save them at least $108,000, which is more than just chump change they can believe in. As first-time Northern Trust customers, they paid no fees or points as people without "U.S. Sen." before their names must. (A one-point fee would have cost them $13,200.) Northern Trust, which the Center for Responsive Politics reports donated $71,000 to Sen. Obama's campaigns, says it has no formal loan-discount program for public officials, but it ordinarily doesn't do business with people who don't have at least $1 million in investable assets, reports The Chicago Tribune. In 2006, however, the Obamas reported investments of just $715,000, according to Money Magazine.
Oooops. Saddam Hussein had WMD's. Funny how the MSM managed to keep this news hidden for five years...
Morgentaler among those named to Order of Canada
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 1, 2008 | 5:00 PM ET Comments1065Recommend391CBC News
Dr. Henry Morgentaler opened his first abortion clinic in Montreal in 1969. (J.P. Moczulski/Canadian Press)Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean has named a leading abortion rights crusader to the Order of Canada, news that has outraged anti-abortion groups.
Dr. Henry Morgentaler is one of 75 Canadians to receive honours for their contribution to the country. The Governor General announced the new inductees on Tuesday after the names were recommended by an advisory panel.
Anti-abortion Conservative MPs are stressing that appointments to the order are not made by cabinet. Nine people, including two government appointees, sit on the Order of Canada panel.
MP Maurice Vellacott, a Conservative from Saskatchewan who opposes abortion, told the Globe and Mail on Monday that he heard Morgentaler's appointment was not unanimous.
"This is a pretty divisive issue," he said. "I think we can all agree on that, so why would we have the highest honour in the country being issued when there is obviously a strong difference of opinion about it?"
Anti-abortion groups were more direct in their condemnation of the appointment.
The Campaign Life Coalition said it is dreadful that a man who spent his life performing abortions should be honoured. The coalition is urging other Order of Canada recipients to return their medals in protest.
"If Morgentaler had any integrity, he would refuse the medal," Mary Ellen Douglas of the coalition said in a news release. "This presentation should be given to people who have made Canada a better place to live and the elimination of thousands of human beings who would have contributed to the future of Canada is a disgrace, not an honour."
'Hero to millions'
Now 85, Morgentaler, a Polish Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Montreal after the war, opened his first abortion clinic in 1969 and performed thousands of procedures, which were illegal at the time.
'It's great to hear that he is finally being recognized for his hard work and dedication to Canadian women's rights.'
--Heather H
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Morgentaler, a trained family physician, argued that access to abortion was a basic human right and women should not have to risk death at the hands of an untrained professional in order to end their pregnancies.
Morgentaler's clinics were constantly raided, and one in Toronto was firebombed. Morgentaler was arrested several times and spent months in jail as he fought his case at all court levels in Canada.
His victory came on Jan. 28, 1988, when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s abortion law. That law, which required a woman who wanted an abortion to appeal to a three-doctor hospital abortion committee, was declared unconstitutional.
Feminist and author Judy Rebick told the Globe and Mail on Monday that it is about time Morgentaler is honoured for his long battle.
"Dr. Morgentaler is a hero to millions of women in the country," she said. "He risked his life to struggle for women's rights … He's a huge figure in Canadian history and the fact that he hasn't got [the Order of Canada] until now is a scandal."
Among the 75 appointments to the Order of Canada are former prime minister Kim Campbell, musician Randy Bachman and CBC News anchor Peter Mansbridge, according to the Governor General's website. They will receive their medals at a later date.
you've gotta love ava...comes and says she's got worthwhile arguments but doesn't give them....but still comes around saying she's got worthwhile arguments. And we're dopes for not reacting to the worthwhile arguments. WHAT?
real whiZZ kid, huh?
Oooops. Saddam Hussein had WMD's. Funny how the MSM managed to keep this news hidden for five years...
That yellowcake was sealed. By the IAEA. And dated from before the first Gulf War. You people cannot possibly be this stupid, can you?
Many of Hillary Clinton's most prominent supporters, including a number of her famous "Hillraisers," are either defecting to the Republican John McCain or withholding their support from the Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
Chief among them is the founder of the Esprit clothing store chain Susie Tompkins Buell who is bitter at what she claims was the sexist treatment of Mrs Clinton by the media during the campaign. "What really hurt women the most was to look back and see all this gender bias," she declared.
Many disaffected Clinton supporters and fundraisers believe Mr Obama did not do enough during the primary contest to end what they believe was a sneering campaign in the media. They are still angry at the way pundits referred to Mrs Clinton's laugh as a "cackle."
There is also anger at the way the mainstream media picked up on the comedian Chris Rock's comparison of Mrs Clinton to the knife- wielding madwoman in the movie Fatal Attraction.
Some of Mrs Clinton's fundraisers are pressuring the Democratic nominee to give her a prominent role in the general election campaign and in a future Obama administration.
"I am not a happy camper," said Jill Iscol, one of the 300 "Hillraisers," individuals who raised more than $100,000 (£50,000) for the Clinton campaign. But Ms Iscol said: "Not voting Democrat would be hard."
The disaffection is causing glee in the McCain campaign. Carly Fiorina, his most prominent female backer and former chief executive of the computer giant Hewlett Packard, announced yesterday that she was holding further talks with 20 of Mrs Clinton'sfinancial backers.
Details of campaign contributions reveal that in May, when Mr Obama clinched the nomination, 115 of Mrs Clinton's big contributors had switched to the Obama campaign with equal numbers donating to Mr McCain.
That yellowcake was sealed. By the IAEA. And dated from before the first Gulf War.
Most of it "illegally obtained" before the Gulf War yet STILL in Iraq because the IAEA didn't have the cajones to confiscate it BEFORE WEAPONS INSPECTORS GOT KICKED OUT BY SADDAM (and therefore while technically under IAEA "seal" it was NOT under IAEA "control" - which is what the "seal" implies). What part of THAT don't you understand, dumbass? Saddam HAD all the makings of a nuke program, just ready to bust out just as soon as Hans & his inspectors were "no more".
Was Saddam Hussein a WMD THREAT in 2003? You KNOW he was. Did he have a WMD program? You betcha. Like Iran's program, it was sitting under official IAEA seal just waiting to be broken into the minute the IAEA inspectors could no longer " officially check" the IAEA seals.... which is WHY WE WENT TO WAR. The IAEA could no longer inspect the seals and so the seals were de facto rendered "meaningless".
And just as soon as Iraq wraps up, we're going to march into Iran and check THOSE IAEA seals... which HAVE been broken (and monitoring equipment disabled).
We're obviously through the looking glass here. Black is white. Down is up. And some sealed yellowcake uranium, which had been fully known to both the US and the UN since at least 1991, and would have taken specialized equipment (which Saddam didn't have, and couldn't easily obtain) and years of effort to turn into anything remotely resembling weapons-grade material, is now justification for a war 12 years after it first came under the eye of the US. This explanation comes, of course, after the Bush Administration has long since abandoned any pretense of WMD's as the justification for the Iraq War. An Administration, one might note, which hardly even mentioned this stockpile of uranium that was just removed, knowing full well that it had nothing to do with the war. Perhaps you people simply are this stupid.
Boil's a confirmed blockhead and a pussy who thinks being an asshole makes up for those mental and character deficits (which only proves that he's a blockhead for thinking that).
Just ignore him (like Evan does).
And pity the poor fool. He and all his venomous and deluded pals are going to have a psychotic breakdown when Barack loses.
They're all giddy about Newsweek polls which give Barack an edge (in July, which only make the odds favorable to McCain, historically, since the majority of competetive contests since Carter had the trailer in July winning in November).
Other polls indicate a much tighter situation (putting McCain ahead if factoring margin of errors in his favor).
I sure would hate to be a Democrat...
The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.
Last month, 11% of voters gave the legislature good or excellent ratings. Congress has not received higher than a 15% approval rating since the beginning of 2008.
The percentage of Democrats who give Congress positive ratings fell from 17% last month to 13% this month. The number of Democrats who give Congress a poor rating remained unchanged. Among Republicans, 8% give Congress good or excellent ratings, up just a point from last month. Sixty-five percent (65%) of GOP voters say Congress is doing a poor job, down a single point from last month.
Voters not affiliated with either party are the most critical of Congressional performance. Just 3% of those voters give Congress positive ratings, down from 6% last month. Sixty-three percent (63%) believe Congress is doing a poor job, up from 57% last month.
Yeah, I wouldn't respond to the substance of what I said either, considering that it makes one of your compatriots look like a dope.
What substance? Your only point is on top of your head.
Oh look, now the little dink is stealing my lines.
So much for this morons predictions. It didn't even make a wave.
It's tidal, and it'll be here in November, Shit for Brains. :)
The New York Times ran an editorial with the headline New And Not Improved. "We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the centre for the general election," it said. "But Mr Obama's shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games." A leader in The Economist disagreed, saying the only problem with his policy adjustments is that they are not centrist enough.
The suggestion that Obama has double-crossed his base to court conservative voters evidently stings, because he has been denying it at every opportunity. "The people who say this haven't apparently been listening to me," he told a town hall meeting in Georgia. "Don't assume that if I don't agree with you on something that it must be because I'm doing that politically. I may just disagree with you."
Gotta love that FISA vote. Obama wants to know everything you are saying on the telephone. But then, totalitarian populists always do.
we can make or break this blog...
i say we let it diiiiiiiiiie
LOL! You couldn't make or break your own bed...
Not so long ago, Barack Obama was the darling of the anti-war Left. On a host of national security issues – Iraq, Iran, government surveillance of terrorists – Obama preached a friendly gospel and was worshipped in turn as a political “messiah.” The liberal grassroots, sensing a kindred spirit in the Illinois Senator, rewarded him with the Democratic nomination. Nothing could come between Obama and his base.
Now something has. In a word: reality. As he courts the national electorate, Obama can ill-afford to sing from the same activist hymnal that propelled him, ever so narrowly, past Hillary Clinton. So it is that to the hair-pulling dismay of his supporters, Obama is leaving the Left – for the moment, at least.
Obama claims he was never Muslim. But on page 154 of "Dreams From My Father," Obama writes:
"In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school, two years at a Catholic school. In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during the Koranic studies."
And on page 204 of "The Audacity of Hope," Obama has a slightly different recollection, writing:
"During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school."
Gee, who should we believe? Barrack Obama? Or Barrack Obama?
shhhhh...like the man said...without us, they're dead
I say we leave them in the mold
Good idea!
LOS ANGELES - When Michael Richards stunned a nightclub audience two years ago by shouting the N-word at a black patron, Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada was quick to join the Rev. Jesse Jackson in calling for a ban on the word's use.
Now that Jackson has let the word slip out, Masada says he wants the civil rights leader to do what comics do every time they say the word on a Laugh Factory stage , pay a fine.
"Unfortunately, Jesse Jackson has broken his own principles," Masada told The Associated Press on Thursday. "Jesse embraced the notion of fining talent for using such a word and he should be held to his own standards."
Fox News confirmed Thursday that Jackson used the word during a break in a TV interview when he criticized Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Jackson, who is traveling in Spain, apologized in a statement Wednesday for "hurtful words" but didn't offer specifics.
Masada said he fines comics $50 for every time they use the word in their act, and he wants Jackson to pay the same amount, to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.
Masada banned use of the word at his nightclubs shortly after Richards' outburst, and although he said several comics still use it in their act, he added that they are quick to pay the fines to charity.
Ibelieve comedic change is possible. Since the New Yorker dropped a bum joke on its cover this week, comedians have appeared on every news outlet to whine about how hard it is to make fun of Barack Obama. Really? They have an arsenal of jokes to use against a 71-year-old ex-POW cancer survivor and Obama is too touchy a subject?
I'm here to help. I called some comedian friends to compile a guide to making fun of Obama. The consensus is there's not yet one standout attribute to pound away on (McCain is old! Clinton cheats on his wife! Bush is stupid! Al Gore is a robot! John Kerry makes me feel inexplicably sad inside!), but there are areas to explore. If we just work a little harder, and sacrifice a little bit, we can achieve greatness. We are the immature jerks we have been waiting for.
IN THE six years between President Bush's inauguration in 2001 and the Democrats' assumption of control of Congress in 2007, the price of gasoline rose an average of 14 cents a year. Since the Democrats took over Congress, the price of gas has doubled, the inflation monster has reawakened and the recession wolf is sniffing at our door.
I know. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after, therefore because of) was the first logical fallacy they taught back when logic was taught in school. It may merely be coincidence that things went to hell in a hand basket since the Democrats took over.
Or maybe not. Here's another coincidence. On July 15, President Bush announced he was lifting the executive branch moratorium on offshore drilling. In the 24 hours that followed, crude oil futures plunged $9.26 (6.3 percent), the biggest oil price decline in 17 years.
"Traders took a look at a feisty and aggressive George Bush and started selling the market well before a new drop of oil has been lifted," said financial analyst Lawrence Kudlow. "If Congress moves to seal the deal, oil prices will probably keep on falling. That's the way traders work. They discount the future. Psychology and expectations can turn on a dime."
Oil prices fell again the next day when the Bureau of Land Management overrode the objections of environmentalists and opened 4.9 million acres of land in Alaska to oil exploration.
Oil prices are high chiefly because Democrats in Congress won't let us develop oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (10.4 billion barrels, equivalent to 37 percent of our proven reserves), on the Outer Continental Shelf (86 billion barrels, nearly four times our proven reserves), or the oil shale in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming (800 billion barrels, more than the proven reserves of the rest of the world).
Democrats also oppose the most promising intermediate-term alternatives to oil: coal-to-liquid plants that convert coal to gasoline and diesel fuel (one using mostly U.S. technology will open in China this fall) and nuclear power plants.
Democrats say developing the oil resources we have in this country is not a solution because it would take five to 10 years for the additional oil to come on line. This isn't true.
"A new report from Wall Street research house Sanford C. Bernstein says that California actually could start producing new oil within one year if [the congressional ban on offshore drilling] were lifted," Mr. Kudlow said. "The California oil is under shallow water and already has been explored. Drilling platforms have been in place since before the moratorium. They're talking about 10 billion barrels worth off the coast of California."
But even if it were true, Democrats are being hypocritical. The primary reason they oppose developing our oil and natural gas resources and pursuing clean coal technologies (we're the Saudi Arabia of coal) is their concern for global warming.
"Coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick, it's global warming, it's ruining our country, it's ruining our world, we've got to stop using fossil fuel," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said last month.
Global warming exists only in computer models. In the real world, global temperatures peaked in 1998, have been declining for the last four years and are projected to remain flat or decline further for the next decade.
Even in the computer models, global warming doesn't pose a serious problem for at least half a century. But the "cap and trade" emission-control systems Democrats are proposing to combat it would have immediate negative effects on the economy.
A Heritage Foundation study estimated that Senate Bill 2191 would reduce the gross domestic product by at least $155 billion a year. All this to produce what the computer models say would be only a negligible reduction in carbon emissions - none at all if China and India don't go along, as they've said they won't.
So Democrats demand we cripple our economy now to deal with a threat that may not exist and which computer models indicate wouldn't manifest itself for 50 years or more, but they refuse to take action on the real economic crisis we face today - a crisis they are largely responsible for creating - because it could take five to 10 years to turn things around.
This may make sense in Hyde Park or Berkeley, but not in those portions of America where people use their heads for something other than to hold up their hair.
WASHINGTON — A plan to lift the ban on coastal drilling is stalled on Capitol Hill, for one simple reason: A Californian who opposes President Bush's proposal is calling the shots in the House of Representatives.
Despite growing public support for ending the ban, even in California, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she won't allow a vote.
"I have no plans to do so," Pelosi said Thursday.
It's an example of the vast power placed in the office of the speaker, who sets the agenda for the 435-member House. Members can force a vote if enough of them sign a petition, but that's a rarity because it requires rank-and-file Democrats to line up against their boss.
In an interview broadcast Sunday in the United States, Obama described the situation here as "precarious" and "urgent," and said the U.S. should not wait to begin the planning that would be needed to send in more troops. As troops sent to Iraq as part of the buildup of forces there begin to leave, Obama says one to two brigades should be redirected to Afghanistan to bolster the efforts here.
"The situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan and I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front in our battle against terrorists," Obama told CBS News. "If we wait until the next administration it could be a year before we get those troops on the ground."
Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
The married ex-senator from North Carolina - whose wife Elizabeth continues to battle cancer -- met with his mistress, blonde divorcée Rielle Hunter, at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night, July 21 - and the NATIONAL ENQUIRER was there! He didn't leave until early the next morning.
Rielle had driven to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara with a male friend for the rendezvous with Edwards. The former senator attended a press event Monday afternoon with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the topic of how to combat homelessness.
But a months-long NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation had yielded information that Rielle and Edwards, 54, had arranged to secretly meet afterward and for the ex-senator to spend some time with both his mistress and the love child who he refuses to publicly acknowledge as his own.
ah...rigor has set in...
We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right"
"The situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan and I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front in our battle against terrorists," said Obama.
Oh yeah? According to the lefty, antiwar "logic" we've been hearing since 2003, if he thinks it's that important, he--and every one of his supporters who applaud that-- should enlist themselves and go and fight, else they're "chickenhawks."
(as they sneer at everyone who supports our troops in Iraq).
Yep. Yellow dog Democrats are called yellow for a reason... especially the Code Pink ones.
haha...just a little bad gas escaping from the reich's corps...
sssstss... we...are not...all cowards......ssssszzzzzzzgroan
No, none of Obama's supporters will be headed to the "central front on terror". They're too busy collecting foodstamps and watching softporn on Cinemax.
How much time does Sayet have to serve this go round?
Why doesn't the three strikes law apply?
Who's the maroon who doesn't know that the yellow dogs are CONSERVATIVE democrats?
As such, that probably does make them a little yellow, alright...just like any other kkkon.
hahaha...don't these peabrains know that the majority of guys fighting in he mideast ARE Democrats as GOP identification amongst the troops continues to fall.
Once this dawns on the yellow, hypocritical cowards, they'll suddenly quit supporting da troops.
god...what grotesques they all are...only the lowest of the dregs left in that bowel movement.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is calling the Bush presidency a total failure. Total failure. I don't know, I think he's done okay. I think he's done okay if you don't count Iraq. The economy. The environment. Afghanistan. The mortgage crisis. The deficit. Gas prices. Hurricane Katrina. Illegal wire tapping. The national debt. Tainted food. Failure to catch bin Laden. CIA leaks. Other than that, I think it's been pretty good.
David Letterman
Time to Purge the Country of Violent Right Wing Filth on the Airwaves and on the Streets:
Beyond outrageous: 'An unemployed man accused of opening fire with a shotgun and killing two people at a Unitarian Universalist church apparently targeted the congregation out of hatred for its support of liberal social policies, police said Monday.' 7/29
He hated Christians. Sounds like someone we know...
The man accused of a mass church shooting this morning was described by his Powell neighbors as a helpful and kind man, but one who had issues with Christianity.
Jim D. Adkisson, 58, has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, which killed one and injured eight others.
He is being held on $1 million bond.
"He had his own sense of belief about religion, that's the impression I got of him," said neighbor Karen Massey. "We were talking one day when my daughter graduated from Bible college, and I told him I was a Christian, then he almost turned angry.
"He seemed to get angry at that."
According to Massey, Adkisson talked frequently about his parents who "made him go to church all his life ... he was forced to do that."
I've been observing that malicious troll for some time. It's became mentally ill from the Kos Kool Aid it's been guzzling in deep draughts.
It's at the bottom of the informational food chain and just runs around trying to push the drugs on everyone else.
Try to comprehend...
BBC
US church 'killer' wrote of hate
A man accused of shooting dead two people in a Tennessee church was motivated by hatred of liberals and anger at being jobless, US police say.
Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen said they had found a letter in Jim Adkisson's car in which he described his feelings.
There were about 200 people in the church, which is known for its liberal stance, at the time of Sunday's attack.
Mr Adkisson, 58, has been charged with first-degree murder.
Children were putting on a play at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church when a gunman entered with a 12-gauge shotgun and opened fire on the congregation.
People dived for cover under pews but several adults were hit, two of them fatally, before a group managed to overpower Mr Adkisson.
Police Chief Owen said Mr Adkisson had brought the gun into the church in a guitar case.
Officers also found a four-page letter in the suspect's car.
"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement," Chief Owen said.
"It appears that the church had received some publicity in the recent past regarding its liberal stance on things and that is at least one of the issues we believe caused that church to be selected."
The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church describes itself on its website as working for social change since the 1950s, including desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women's rights and gay rights.
The poor dopes have been getting the Fox/Limbaugh version...
Maybe the Savage Weiner version.
You know they're secretly applauding this monkey...
haha...of course, everyone else's version goes like this:
Police: Man shot churchgoers over liberal views
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD – 4 hours ago
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An out-of-work truck driver accused of opening fire at a Unitarian church, killing two people, left behind a note suggesting that he targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal policies, including its acceptance of gays, authorities said Monday.
A four-page letter found in Jim D. Adkisson's small SUV indicated he intentionally targeted the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church because, the police chief said, "he hated the liberal movement" and was upset with "liberals in general as well as gays."
Alex-Mayer
St. Louis Post Dispatch
**UPDATE: Police have announced the discovery of a 4-page “manifesto” written by Adkisson describing his hatred of “liberals in general, as well as gays.”
Therefore it looks less likely that religious hatred was a motive, but this again presents a problem: only half of the self-described motive can qualify this shooting as a “hate crime.” It’s not difficult to imagine that sentencing in this case could turn on an absurd debate about “which group Adkisson hated more” — gays or liberals.
haha...bottom of the info chain...from some Fox freak...what a dirty little joke these murdering freaks are.
Just like their man, Novakula...hit and run yellow ass scum
Haters, professional, obsessed haters...that's what these scum are, and America is sick to death of them:
A Murderer's Bookshelf: Hannity, O'Reilly, and Savage On Killer's Reading List
This morning I wrote (in "Monster") that Sean Hannity et al. might bear some share of moral responsibility for the killings in Knoxville. Sadly for everyone concerned, that may be true.
This evening we learn from the Knoxville News that officers entering the home of murder Jim Adkisson "found Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder by radio talk show host Michael Savage, Let Freedom Ring by talk show host Sean Hannity, and The O'Reilly Factor, by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly."
Ann Coulter says liberals should be beaten with baseball bats and tried for treason (she's not clear about the order in which these events are to take place.) Dick Morris says they're "traitors" who should be decapitated.
I had a friend at Clear Channel (yes, I have a broad group of friends) who described some of these people as "entertainers." Don't you get it, guys? You use inflammatory images that equates your fellow Americans with violent enemies of the nation. Then you act surprised when a mentally ill person believes you and kills. You use the language of war and then say you're not to blame when somebody enlists in your imaginary struggle.
Their next step will be outrage - outrage! - at the idea that they may be morally accountable for this action, the possible fruit of their rhetoric.
We all need to be thoughtful about the impact of our words. But the Right has made it their business to promote a particularly virulent brand of hatred. Would Jim Adkisson have killed without all that prompting from the vituperative chorus of the right? We'll never know. But it's looking less likely with every passing hour that he would ever have entered a church filled with children and started shooting.
If they found something I wrote in a killer's home, I'd stop what I was doing and begin some serious self-reflection. I'd write about it, consider my errors, and try to make amends. Wouldn't you? Not that censorship isn't the answer. Not every reprehensible act can be legislated away. Sometimes the most effective way to change people is to hold them accountable. That includes not only Fox News, in this case, but also CNN - who recently gave the anchor chair to hate-speaker Glenn Beck.
That's enough for the smelly, little killers for now...they'll be in a sweat all night...writhing in ecstasy and vicarious thrills over what their soul brother did in a liberal church...how DARE a church be liberal, Billy Bob!!...alternating with fear and denial at being held accountable by a disgusted country
Yes. Maybe this will be the final straw in their stinking hate radio orgy...the perverted cretins.
I rest my case.
hahahahahaha...the verdict comes out against him ...
and he "rests his case."
How do freaks like this manage to live?
They're funnier than hell, though.
But what is the flakey, little fuck doing over here, anyway?
Oh, that's right; his own blog is DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAD.
And populated by two other dead simps.
So they have to try to hang out with the libs.
And really dumb, too.
One in four bridges in America structurally unsafe.
Bear with us; we can make that four out of four, says GW.
Wingbat poster boy, Adkisson now working on insanity plea.
Says the barking voice of a fat, pill popping blowhard directed him to do it.
Good for Adkisson. Acknowledging that you have a mental illness is an important first step (hint-hint).
Any GOPigs NOT in jail?
Senator Stevens Indicted in Corruption Inquiry
The New York Times:
"Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Republican senator in United States history and a figure of great influence in Washington as well as in his home state, has been indicted on federal corruption charges. Mr. Stevens, 84, was indicted on seven counts of falsely reporting income. The charges are related to renovations on his home and to gifts he has received."
zounds
sounds
like some poor little would be blogger cant live with the boot tracks on his ass
teds mugshot will look goood next to novaks and jimmy bobs
Funny that the liberal hater decided to kill a bunch of Christians instead of shooting up a gay bar...
But then, he hated "gays".
Talk about your non sequiturs.
Aren't they adorable when they try to use those latin terms...teehee.
Yes, Yech!, some are predicting the whole GOP establishment in Ak. will be under indictment by election time.
From what we've seen of them and their brethren...aka future cell mates...indeed a series of boobs.
I know whenever I fell hatred towards gays, I always feel like gunning down a few Christians in their church...
Calm down. Easy. Take a deep breath. Don't worry. Everything will be alright.
hahaha now they're comforting each other in front of us
wouldnt their own little blog be more appropriate?
i cant think of a more discreet place than that
nine GOP senators have announced they wont attend the GOP convention...
its an image thing...who can blame them?
and teddy tubes will be in jail
mccane thinks he'll attend if he can get directions
Just take it easy. No one's going to hurt you. We're here to help. Now, who did this to you? Was it your parents?
My, that's getting to be a trite, little act, isn't it? He wouldn't be following us around trying to get his tattered ego back, would he? ...amazing how often that happens after we've "visited" one of their stale, little blogs for a week or two.
Just one of those gifts that keeps on giving.
Check this out...Condi's own advisor!...too funny.
"The biggest stupid idea was to invade Iraq in the first place."
-- Condi counter-insurgency advisor David Kilcullen , who called that decision "fucking stupid"
Rice should have known better than to hire an Aussie...they're reality people...and very blunt about it.
You have to accept responsibility for what's happened to you. You are not a "victim." Your condition is your own fault. To realize that, however, is actually empowering, for just as your condition is the result of your own choices--however poorly thought through--you likewise have the same power to change, but you have to choose to do so.
Unfortunately, recognition is a prequisite, and the malicious, viral programming which has infected your mind--a Trojan--has sophisticated failsafes which makes removal difficult.
Among them are the virus' defense mechanisms of denial and projection, the latter ensuring the survival of the former by automatically ejecting recognitions in a data dump onto an unwitting second party.
That automation is facilitated by the initializing stealth deletion of self-awareness, one of the first things to go when the hostile matrix is downloaded in order for the overwrite to proceeed without the obstruction of realization.
Marxism is an insidious, tentacled mindworm that becomes so intertwined with the lattice of consciousness and is so destructive to reasoning faculties that the success rate for deprogramming is, I'm afraid, not promising.
Deprograming is further complicated by the inverted language that the viral application uses, causing it to respond to commands and prompts in the opposite way intended.
And so, when the abortion of malicious, streaming material is attempted so as to protect the harddrive, the troubleshooter unwittingly commands: "Save To C Drive."
Inverting the integral values of a once-universal system is the most diabolical defense mechanism of all for the virus, making it unresponsive and practically tamper-proof, allowing the transmogrifying of the host to continue unabated because rational counsel sounds like gibberrish.
("Huh?" Exactly.)
Fortunately, because the parasite's overriding concern is enslaving its host and defending the relationship from exterior intervention, it's not very good on offense, as the host's infection is easily recognizable by the symptoms and the vast majority of uninfected operating systems know a Trojan when they see one and have armored themselves with the appropriate prophylactics.
Still, it tries to spread by ensnaring as many unprotected minds as possible (and hence the contempt for traditional, nuclear families, which provide excellent antiviral programs and shieds).
From what I've observed, you're in an advanced stage of the infection and pretty much a lost cause.
You're now nothing but a mindless, snarling animal, an attack dog of the masters who designed the program and slipped it to you mixed in some Kool Aid concoction to transform you into a sniveling orc for their Mordorous vision.
But again, that you're a hateful, wretched creature-- but a useful idiot for your masters-- is no one's fault but your own.
And when people reach out their hand to help you, you bite it.
Fine. Be that way. Just remember: If you want to be a festering hemmorhoid on the anus of society, that's your choice. Don't blame others because your life smells like shit, and don't presume to tell others who live above the waist that their's does, too.
Fool.
Hahahahaha! Wow! You guys must have really done a job on this poor character...why wasn't I invited?
The wingos won't care about this stuff. None of them have ever been near a RECROOOOOOOTER!! BOOOO!!!
Army recruiter threatened teen with jail for not enlisting
07/29/2008
Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane
An army recruiter in Houston has been lying to high school students about their obligations under a non-binding military "delayed entry program" and even threatening them with jail if they don't follow through and enlist.
Eighteen year old Irving Gonzales told KHOU 11 News in Houston that as a high school senior he started thinking about enlisting in the Army as a way of helping out his family financially and signed up for the program. But when he told the recruiter, Sgt. Glenn Marquette, that he'd changed his mind and "I'd rather just stay here, go to college," Marquette insisted that Gonzales couldn't get out because "you signed a binding contract."
Accourding to KHOU reporter Mark Greenblatt, Army recruiting regulations state that "delayed entry members can leave any time" and "under no circumstances can a recruiter threaten or intimidate future soldiers."
In an audio recording played by KHOU, Gonzales went on to ask, "What if I just don't show up?"
Marquette replied, "Then guess what? You're AWOL. ... You want to go to school? You will not get no loans. ... As soon as you get pulled over for a speeding ticket ... they're going to see that you're a deserter. Then they're going to apprehend you, take you to jail."
"All that lovey dovey I want to go to college and all that?" Marquette concluded. "Guess what? You just threw it out the window."
Marquette refused to speak to KHOU reporters who caught up with him in a parking lot, telling them, "I don't want to be bothered." However, the Army says that making threats as Marquette did is a violation of regulations and that he has been removed from recruiting duties, pending an investigation.
According to Greenblatt, when KHOU found the same tactics being used three years ago, the story became a national scandal and the military promised its recruiters would be retrained. "It seems someone didn't learn their lessons," Greenblatt reports. The officer involved in that earlier incident was even promoted to be a station commander, responsible for training and supervising other recruiters.
Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), whose district lies just north and east of Houston, agrees that "there is a problem."
"Our country cannot deceive its citizens," Poe who is himself a veteran, told KHOU. "Since the Army hasn't taken the initiative, now Congress may have to get involved. ... The Army has to get their ship in shape."
Stevens In dicked ment makes GOPigs appear even OILIER:
Indictment of Stevens adds to bleak GOP prospects
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer 17 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The indictment of Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens on charges that he lied about accepting gifts from an oil contractor only adds to his party's already bleak electoral prospects in November, and not simply because it could cost the GOP a Senate seat that should be safe.
While Stevens has vowed to fight charges and, through a spokesman, to move "full steam ahead" with his re-election bid, he's received little support from Alaska's Republican governor and no comment yet from his own GOP leader in the Capitol.
His indictment, though, could knock Republicans off message just as party leaders hoped to gain traction on one of the few issues in which voters solidly side with them: producing more domestic oil.
Stevens is the single most prominent advocate of oil drilling in protected areas, and charges that he took more than a quarter-million dollars worth of unreported gifts from oil services contractor Veco Corp. and its executives will play right into Democratic efforts to paint Republicans as a party captive to Big Oil.
But media queries about Stevens' future are likely to engulf Republican efforts Wednesday to keep voters focused on Democrats' refusal to open restricted areas such as Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
Stevens' indictment gives Democrats a new edge in their drive to win his seat and more momentum in their push to capture a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate.
From May 1999 to August 2007, prosecutors said, the senator concealed "his continuing receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things of value from a private corporation."
Stevens said in a statement distributed by his office: "I have proudly served this nation and Alaska for over 50 years. My public service began when I served in World War II. It saddens me to learn that these charges have been brought against me. I have never knowingly submitted a false disclosure form required by law as a U.S. senator."
So predictable. An automaton, the individual human overwritten--destroyed--by the matrix, now a chimerical beast, one part heckling hyena, one part hissing and spitting snake, and two parts squawking parrot, all embodied in an Orwellian pig.
A repulsive, deformed creature.
Indeed, Marx discovered the wand of Circe.
Haha...are any of you pre-dickable automatons Marxists who hate the nuclear family?
I don't know anyone like that, but just shame on you if you are one.
I guess the poor, troubled guy is debating some demon in his head.
Hey, how about that Rove contempt thing?
About time, huh?
Shame on you, fool. You swallowed that pill hook, line, and sinker and think it was just another day at the beach.
Case in point: One of the trolls (might have been you) denied any intellectual affiliation with the Frankfurt Schoolmen but then unwittingly posted an anti-conservative "analysis" by Adorno (a Frankfurt Schoolman).
Unless you're playing dumb, you, fool, don't even realize that liberal Feminism, the Greens, your secular pope Chomsky, and Obama's liberation theology to boot runs through the Frankfurt Schoolmen and goes all the way back to Marx.
It's all seeded with the eggs of that malicious mindworm.
And you're the proof.
"Haha...are any of you pre-dickable automatons Marxists who hate the nuclear family?"
You left out the operative word "traditional" (nuclear family), for obvious reasons.
O Pleeze...let us see them FROG MARCH the fat sumbitch
Does preposterous pretension often go with inadequacy problems?
Where's that guy who was asking about Sayet's jail time?
Please post something more detailed on that.
"Case in point: One of the trolls (might have been you) denied any intellectual affiliation with the Frankfurt Schoolmen but then unwittingly posted an anti-conservative 'analysis' by Adorno (a Frankfurt Schoolman)."
I remember now. It was "Frankie" who posted the anti-conservative "analysis" of Adorno as a rebuttal to the accusation that he was a disciple--consciously or not-- of the Frankfurt Schoolman, apparently unaware that Adorno was a Frankfurt Schoolman.
That's pitiful.
"O Pleeze...let us see them FROG MARCH the fat sumbitch"
Maybe you can celebrate the ocassion with all the leftovers from the last "ROVE'S GONNA FROGMARCH!" party you all had planned with giddy and sadistically salivating anticipation when the Valerie Plame "Spygate Scandal" was nearing it's crescendo.
"ROVE'S GONNA FROGMARCH!"
You even started circulating a photo-shopped picture of it, in all unbridled confidence.
But then you had to cancel the party when it came out at the last minute that "antiwar" Armitage spilled the beans. :(
Remember?
I do. :)
FOOLS.
"Does preposterous pretension often go with inadequacy problems?"
Absolutely. Get a load of the resident POMO poet.
A NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation has uncovered John Edwards’ mistress, Rielle Hunter – the mother of his “love child” – has been secretly receiving $15,000 a month as part of an elaborate cover-up orchestrated by the former presidential contender.
The money is being funneled to Hunter by a wealthy colleague who was closely tied to the Edwards’ campaign. This same man is also shoveling cash to Edwards’ pal and former aide Andrew Young – who tried to take the heat off the ex-Senator by claiming he is the father of Rielle’s baby.
Another Blow To Justice
Washington Post
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Another stunning report has documented the bold and illegal influence of politics at the Justice Department over the past eight years. For decades, Republican and Democratic attorneys general had protected from political influence the hiring of career prosecutors and administrative judges. There was an unbroken rule, embodied in law, regulation and department policy, that no political questions would be asked of those who wanted to serve in career -- as opposed to political -- positions in the department. We demanded of our Justice Department, in its core prosecutorial and adjudicative functions, that it be separate from politics. Until the Bush administration.
Last month, we learned that political functionaries deputized by Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales had screened the best and the brightest coming out of law schools, judicial clerkships and other positions to weed out those who appeared to be Democrats or who might hold liberal ideas; favor was shown to Republicans, members of the Federalist Society, and those considered to be good and loyal conservatives. As the department's inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility noted, this is illegal. It also breaks the promise of justice that is above politics and undermines the department's best values.
Now, an equally graphic report by the same two offices concludes that in 2003, the apolitical process for selecting immigration judges and prosecutors was stood on its head. A chief aide to Attorney General Ashcroft (and later to Attorney General Gonzales) "outlined a new process for hiring [immigration judges] that listed the White House as the sole source for generating candidates."
Thus, immigration judges -- who, by law, are to be chosen without regard to their political pedigree -- were no longer picked by the nonpolitical office that is supposed to find and train the men and women who mete out justice to tens of thousands of immigrants. In the interview files for these candidates were such comments as "Cons[ervative] on 'god, guns + gays' " -- but not much about whether they understood immigration law or had the capacity for fairness.
Even more appalling, others, including a counsel to Attorney General Gonzales, illegally selected individual line prosecutors -- who wield tremendous power over the reputations, liberty and livelihood of Americans -- using Internet searches on such keywords as "Bush, Gore, Republican, Democrat, Clinton, spotted owl, abortion, gay, gun, and Florida recount" to assess their political and policy views.
Why does this matter?
In a long career counseling individuals being investigated by the Justice Department, I have had to explain to sometimes cynical citizens that politics are prohibited from influencing such inquiries. My ability to give that assurance has hinged on both the public perception -- and reality -- that the career assistant U.S. attorneys, line prosecutors and lawyers who work at the department are picked on their merits and proceed without regard to politics.
Until now.
During the Bush administration, we have seen U.S. attorneys fired under circumstances that have led many to conclude they paid the price because they wouldn't prosecute Democrats; honors program applicants screened for their political leanings; and now the process of hiring line prosecutors and immigration judges similarly politicized. How do we reassure the American people that justice is being meted out fairly? Trust and respect lost are hard to win back.
Worse, the reports lay out evidence that the political appointees behind many of these missteps knew that what they were doing was wrong.
But responsibility does not end there. The department's senior leadership turned over hiring decisions to people with no history and no understanding of the institution, people who came from the Republican National Committee or White House political functions. The predictable result was that the department would have, in essence, political appointees in career positions. Thus was the department's fundamental promise to the American people -- which had been respected for decades -- broken.
Where were the career people on whom we count to keep the department honest? The latest report concludes that the two most senior people responsible for protecting immigration judges from political influence had "sufficient evidence . . . to have realized that political or ideological affiliations played a role" and that they should have spoken up to others who could do something. The same criticism was leveled at those who ran the office overseeing the honors program and lateral hiring. Where were they? It is disappointing that they failed to act forcefully to protect the department they served.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey, himself a former career prosecutor and judge, pledges to fix these problems going forward. But more is required. The department needs to hold individuals responsible for their actions. It needs to offer opportunities to those who were improperly denied them. And it needs to make sure that this never happens again. Restoring the promise of unbiased justice will take the efforts of both this attorney general and his successors.
Speaking of FROG MARCHING:
ta da....
Ted Stevens arraignment set for Thursday; Jail is not a series of tubes 7/31
hohohoho
Ted Stevens indictment likely to make a bad year worse for GOP; Can the Republican downfall be stopped? "NO" 7/31
yeah what a ho'
hohohohoho
Most Corrupt Party in US History...
Stevens indictment likely to make a bad year worse for GOP
More on this Story
Stevens denies charges that he failed to disclose gifts
Story
Dole, worried about her own seat, quickly cuts Stevens ties
Obama targets Alaska as battleground state
WASHINGTON — Ted Stevens is hardly a household name outside Alaska, yet the indictment of the veteran senator Tuesday could be another blow to Republicans' chances of success in legislative races around the country this fall.
"It reflects poorly on Congress nationally and it reflects poorly on the Republican Party," said Ted Birkland, who grew up in Anchorage and is a professor of public policy at North Carolina State University, in Raleigh.
He and other analysts think that Stevens, who's been indicted on seven federal corruption charges, is likely to become another symbol of all that voters find wrong with the Republican Party.
"It already looked likely to be a bad year for Republicans. This reinforces the impression that the party has a lot of problems and a lot of dirty laundry," said Thomas De Luca, a professor of political science at Fordham University, in New York.
Alaska's three electoral votes could be in play, however, as the Republican hierarchy has been hit badly by political corruption — as Stevens' indictment again underscores.
"In the barroom that is the Bush economy, Wall Street does indeed get drunk, but the rest of us get the hangover and get stuck with the tab." (TomPaine.Com)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHICAGO TRIBUNE: HOW FANNIE GOT BURNED
Compares US Economy to a "Marxist Comic Book"
Unknown Senator Larry Craig tapdancing in a bathroom as an alleged homosexual Morse Code makes frontpage news and becomes a poster boy for GOP "corruption" by hooting and heckling cyber trolls.
Then a barrage of overcompensating deflections when someone mentions that Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards--and erstwhile veep choice for Obama--hides in a bathroom from reporters after having been busted visiting a mistress (who was paid over $100,000 by the Edwards campaign to make him look "hip" in a video) and their "love child" at a hotel while, back at the mansion, his cancer stricken wife and kids think daddy is out helping the poor.
More proof (superfluous proof, at this point) of the mental illness and astonishing depth of corrupt depravity of the lefty mind as it shamelessly sees fit to preach about "corruption."
haha...wow, did ONE guy have a heterosexual affair?
MAYBE.
Who cares?
Doesn't this moron know the difference between endless, endemic corruption and the occasional straying husband...nothing compared to what McCANE did to his first wife, of course.
Maybe the peabrain needs to see the list again...and an update would make it significantly longer!
Now, these are REAL pervs:
* Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.
* Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
* Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
* Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor. we’re just getting started, kids.
* Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempted rape of a juvenile.
* Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.
* Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.
* Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.
* Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a juvenile.
* Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.
* Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
* Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
* Republican Congressman Donald “Buz” Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a minor and sentenced to one month in jail.
* Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges.
* Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.
* Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.
* Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a minor working as a congressional page.
* Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.
* Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had sex with a 16 year old when he was 28.
* Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.
* Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.
* Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. “Republican Marty”), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a juvenile and one count of delivering the drug LSD.
* Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.
* Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.
* Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was arrested after allegedly offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
* Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.
* Republican anti-gay activist Earl “Butch” Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.
* Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.
* Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.
* Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.
* Republican politician Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to minors under 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).
* Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was charged with sexual misconduct involving a 15-year old girl.
* Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a child.
* Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.
* Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.
* Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.
* Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.
* Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.
* Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.
* Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.
* Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.
* Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a “good military man” and “church goer,” was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
* Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.
* Republican director of the “Young Republican Federation” Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.
* Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was charged with rape for allegedly paying a 15-year old girl for sex. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.
UPDATE: oooh, here’s an even better list (links at original post)
Edison Misla Aldarondo, Republican legislator, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for molestation of his daughter and her friend for eight-year period starting when they were 9. [1]
Randal David Ankeney, Republican activist, arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child with force. He faces 6 charges related to getting a 13-year-old girl stoned on pot and then having sex with her. [2] Also accused of sexually assaulting another girl. [3]
Jim Bakker, televangelist with Pat Robertson at Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting network. Committed adultery with Jessica Hahn [4] and then used charitable donations to pay her hush money[5]. Fellow televangelists say he’s gay. [6][7] Indicted on 23 federal charges of fraud, tax evasion, and racketeering [8].
Merrill Robert Barter, Republican County Commissioner, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy. [9]
Robert Bauman, Republican congressman and anti-gay activist, was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar. [10]
Parker J. Bena, Republican activist and Bush Elector, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography (including children as young as 3 years old) on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000. [11]
Louis Beres, chairman of the Christian Coalition of Oregon. 3 of his family members accuse him of molesting them when they were pre-teens. [12]
Howard L. Brooks, Republican legislative aide and advisor to a California assemblyman, was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography. [13]
John Bolton Bush’s appointee ambassador to United Nations, corroborated allegations that Mr. Bolton’s first wife, Christina Bolton, was forced to engage in group sex have not been refuted by the State Department. [14]
Mike Bowers Former State Attorney General, prosecuted the famous Bowers vs. Hardwick case, based on Georgia anti-sodomy laws. Admitted to a 10-year adulterous affair. [15]
Andrew Buhr, Republican politician, former committeeman for Hadley Township Missouri, was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy. [16]
Ted Bundy campaigned for the Republican Party. Infamous serial rapist who murdered 16 women. [17]
Jim Bunn Congressman of Oregon: With his success due in great part to support from the Christian Coalition, Bunn won his congressional seat, then left his wife (and mother of his five children), married a staffer, and put his new wife on the state payroll with a salary of $97,500. [18]
John Allen Burt, Republican anti-abortion activist, convicted of sexually molesting a 15 year old girl at the home for troubled girls that he ran.[19]
Dan Burton, Republican Congressman who, while married, fathered a child by another woman. [20]
George W. Bush, Republican president, accused in a criminal complaint and lawsuit of raping Margie Schoedinger, who later committed suicide. Accused by Tammy Phillips, a former stripper quoted in the National Enquirer in 2000 saying she had an affair with Bush that had ended in 1999.[21][22]
John Butler, Republican activist, was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.[23]
Ken Calvert, Congressman (R-Ca), champion of the Christian Coalition and its “family values.” Sued as an alimony deadbeat by his ex-wife. Said “We can’t forgive what occurred between the President and Lewinsky.” In 1993 he was caught by police receiving oral sex from a prostitute and attempted to flee the scene.[24]
Helen Chenoweth, Congresswoman (R-Id.). Admitted to a six-year adulterous affair with a married associate. In 1995, Chenoweth had denied the affair when asked about it by The Spokane Spokesman-Review, but now she claims a pardon from a higher authority: “I’ve asked for God’s forgiveness, and I’ve received it,” she revealed. [25]
Keola Childs, Republican County Councilman, pleaded guilty to sexual assault in the first degree for molesting a male child.[26]
Kevin Coan, Republican St. Louis Election Board official, arrested and charged with trying to buy sex from a 14-year-old girl whom he met on the Internet.[27]
Dan Crane, Republican Congressman, married, father of six. Received a 100% “Morality Rating” from Christian Voice. Had sex with a minor working as a congressional page. [28]
On July 20, the House voted for censure Crane, the first time that censure had been imposed for sexual misconduct.[29]
Paul Crouch Televangelist, Former President of Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Paid $425,000 in hush money in an attempt to cover up a gay affair.[30]
Richard A. Dasen Sr., Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, convicted of sexual abuse of children, promotion of prostitution and several counts of solicitation, enough to add up to a sentence of 126 years in prison. [31][32][33]
Richard A. Delgaudio, Republican fundraiser and Bush pioneer, was found guilty of child porn charges. [34]
Peter Dibble, Republican legislator pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl. [35]
Nicholas Elizondo, Director of the Young Republican Federation molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison. [36]
Larry Dale Floyd, Republican Constable in Denton County, Texas Precinct Two. Arrested for allegedly crossing state lines to have sex with an 8-year old child and was charged with 7 related offenses. Age 62 at time of arrest. [37][38]
John Fund, of the Wall Street Journal, a prominent anti-abortion columnist and GOP fund raiser. He lost his position after it was revealed that he impregnated the daughter of an old girlfriend and then encouraged her to abort his child. [39]
Jeff Gannon Partisan blogger with no journalism credentials and a fake name who got invited to Bush’s Press conferences. Is also a pimp and a gay prostitute.[40]
Jack W. Gardner, Republican Councilman, had been convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl. when the Republican Party, knowing of these crimes, put him on the ballot.[41]
Richard Gardner, a Nevada State Representative (R), admitted to molesting his two daughters. [42]
Newt Gingrich, married three times. Gingrich campaign worker Anne Manning admitted that she gave Newt oral sex while he was still married to his first wife. Informed one wife he was filing for divorce while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer treatments.[43]
Philip Giordano, Republican mayor sentenced to 37 years for forcing two 8 and 10 year old girls to perform oral sex on him in his City Hall office. [44][45]
Rudy Giuliani, had an adulterous affair.[46][47]
Matthew Glavin, president and CEO of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, big player in the Clinton Impeachment, and many anti-gay jihads, has been arrested multiple times for public indeceny, one time fondling the crotch of the officer who was arresting him. [48]
Mark A. Grethen, Republican activist, convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.[49]
Jon Grunseth, Republican businessman and candidate for Minnesota governor, withdrew his candidacy after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter, and tried to grope one. [50]
Dr. W. David Hager Bush appointee, member of Focus on the Family’s Physician Resource Council, player in movement to ban the morning-after-pill. Had an adulterous affair, before divorcing his wife he sexually abused her, including sodomizing her in her sleep.[51]
Mark Harris, Republican city councilman who is described as a “church goer,” was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.[52]
John Hathaway, Republican Senate candidate, was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media. [53]
Howard Scott Heldreth, anti-abortion activist who gained fame during the Shiavo media-circus, was convicted of two charges of raping a child in 2002. [54]
Mike Hintz, a First Assembly of God youth pastor, introduced by Bush on the campaign trail, and promoted his policies.[55] Says he supports Bush’s values. Two months later, this married father of four turned himself into police, charged with the sexual exploitation of a child. [56][57]
Neal Horsley has called for the arrest of all homosexuals. Admitted on the Fox News Radio’s The Alan Colmes Show, that he’s had sex with mules.[58][59]
Tim Hutchinson, divorced his wife of 29 years to marry a congressional aide he was having an affair with.[60]
Henry Hyde, Judge who oversaw Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, prominent opponent of reproductive rights, who had an extramarital affair with a woman who was married and had three children, during the course of which she and her husband were divorced. [61]
Don Haidl, Assistant Sheriff of Orange Country, in violation of California’s rape shield law, led a smear campaign against the child his son poisoned and then violently gang-raped on videotape, adding up to 24 felony counts. He said that his son “acted accordingly” because the child was a “slut”. [62]
Paul Ingram, Republican Party leader of Thurston County, Washington, pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.[63]
Earl Kimmerling, sentenced to 40 years in prison after he confessed to molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.[64]
Lewis Libby, former Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. In 1996 published a novel containing bizaree sexual content, including beastiality and pedophillia. [65]
Rush Limbaugh, triple-divorcee[66], 30-pill a day drug addict. [67]
Bob Livingston, former Congressman (R-La.) resigned from the House in the wake of revelations about his past adultery.
Donald Lukens, Republican Congressman, was found guilty of having sex with a minor - a girl he was accused of sleeping with since she was 13. [68]
Pat McPherson, Douglas County Election Commissioner. Arrested for fondling a 17-year-old girl. [69]
Jon Matthews, Republican talk show host in Houston, was indicted for indecency with a child, including exposing his genitals to a girl under the age of 17. [70]
Jeff Miller, (R-Cleveland), Senate Republican Caucus Chairman in Tennessee and the sponsor of Tennessee’s Marriage Protection act, getting divorced (as of April 2005) because of an affair he was having with an office aid. Miller described the Tennessee Marriage Protection Act as a means of preserving the sanctity of marriage. He opposed an amendment, however, which stated that “Adultery is deemed to be a threat to the institution of marriage and contrary to public policy in Tennessee.†[71][72]
Nicholas Morency, Republican anti-abortion activist, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor [73].
Sue Myrick, Congresswoman (R-NC), describes herself as a “devout Christian.” Committed adultery with a married man.
Bill O’Reilly Right-wing conservative talk show host on Fox News, sued for sexual harrassment by his producer.
Bob Packwood, Senator (R-Ore.), resigned in 1995 under a threat of public senate hearings related to 10 female ex-staffers accusing him of sexual harassment.
Jeffrey Patti, Republican Committee Chairman, was arrested for distributing what experts call “some of the most offensive material in the child pornography world” - a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped. [74]
John Paulk, lied about prowling for gay sex while running a fundamentalist group to cure gays.
Brent Parker Utah State Representetive. Arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer posing as a male prostitute. [75][76]
John E. Peterson, Congressman (R-Pa), accused of sexual harassment and creation of a hostile work environment by six women. Peterson has refused to admit a crime, saying only “I may have been an excessive hugger.”
Harvey Pitt, SEC Chief under George W. Bush until he was forced to resign in 2002. Worked for New Frontier Media, a firm which distributed teen sex videos.
Mark Pazuhanich, Republican judge, pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation. [77]
George Roche III, carried on a 19 year affair with his son’s wife, while serving as president of , which “emphasizes the importance of the common moral truths that bind all Americans, while recognizing the importance of religion for the maintenance of a free society.”
Beverly Russell, County Chairman of the Christian Coalition, sexually molested his step-daughter, Susan Smith, who later drowned her two children. [78][79]
Jack Ryan, 2004 Republican nominee for US Senate from Illinois, pressured his wive, actress Jeri Ryan, to have sex with other men. Tricked her into visiting sex clubs, where he asked her to have sex with him while others watched.[80]
Joe Scarborough, former Republican Congressman, currently a conservative talk show host. Resigned his congressional seat abruptly to spend more time with his family, amidst allegations of an affair. His intern, Lori Klausutis, was soon after found dead in his office. The medical examiner, who had his license revoked in for falsifying information in an autopsy report, and suspended in for six years, ruled the case an accident, after giving conflicting information about her injuries. He said he lied about them because “The last thing we wanted was 40 questions about a head injury.”
Ed Schrock, two-term republican congressman, with a 92% approval rating from the Christian Coalition. Cosponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, consistently opposed gay rights. Married, with wife and kids. Withdrew his candidacy for a third term after tapes of him soliciting for gay sex were circulated.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, right wing conservative radio host. Promotes family values, estranged from her mother, opposes birth control, has had her tubes tied, espouses saving oneself for marriage, admits to having had sex before she was married, opposes adultery, has committed adultery while she was married, and has slept with a married man, opposes divorce, is divorced and remarried, has posed for nude photos which are available online.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican governor, had sex with a 16 year old when he was 28.
John Scmitz, right-wing republican congressman, who had had his committee chairship taken away from him in the California State Senate after issuing a press release attacking Jews, feminists and gays. Forced out of office in 1982 for having an adulterous affair and fathering two children out of wedlock with one of his students. He was caught because his baby was admitted to hospital for having hair tied so tightly around his penis that it was almost severed. His daughter, Mary Kay LeTourneau, was convicted of having an adulterous affair with one of her students, and giving birth to two of his children. [81]
Larry Jack Schwarz, Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, fired after child pornography was found in his possession. [82] With his political career over, he went to work in the hard-core pornography industry for Platinum X Pictures, owned by his daughter, porn starlet Jewel De’Nyle (Stephany Schwarz).[83]
Jim Stelling, Seminole County Republican Party chairman who believes in “family values”, as he told a judge. Filed a defamation lawsuit againt Nancy Goettman, a former county GOP executive committee member, for falsely claiming he had been married six times. Stelling has been married 5 times. [84]
Don Sherwood, Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Eventually admitted to an affar with a woman 30 years younger than him, after she accused him of physical abuse and attempting to choke her. [85]
Tom Shortridge. Republican campaign consultant, was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl. [86]
Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr., Republican City Councilman, pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison. [87][88]
Craig J. Spence, Republican lobbyist, organized orgies with child prostitutes in the White House during the 1980s. [89][90]
Jimmy Swaggart, televangelist, said during a sermon “I’m trying to find the correct name for it … this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. … I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.” Had an affair with a prostitute.
David Swartz, Republican County Commissioner, pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. [91]
Randall Terry, Right to Life activist, founder of Operation Rescue, involved in the Terri Schiavo protests. Once imprisoned for sending former President Bill Clinton an aborted fetus. His son Jamiel is gay; his daughter Tila had sex outside of marriage, became pregnant, had a miscarriage - she is no longer welcome in his home; his daughter Ebony had 2 children outside of wedlock and became Muslim. He has campaigned against infidelity and birth control, gays and unwed mothers. Terry himself was censured by his church after committing adultery.
Bill Thomas Republican congressman, had an affair with Deborah Steelman, a health care lobbyist who steered huge campaign gifts to Thomas’ war chest.
Strom Thurmond, republican senator and racist, raped and impregnanted a 15-year old African American maid. [92]
Robin Vanderwall, Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate, director of Faith & Family Alliance, (a Christian Coalition spin off), former student of Pat Robertson’s Regent Universtity, member of Ralph Reed’s inner circle who funneled money to from lobbiest Jack Abromoff to Reed [93], convicted in Virginia for soliticing sex from a 13-year-old-boy[94] and on four other counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet. [95]
Jim Wesr, Spokane Mayor. Had a sexual affair with an 18 year old. Supported a bill, which failed, would have barred gays and lesbians from working in schools, day-care centers and some state agencies. Voted to bar the state from distributing pamphlets telling people how to protect themselves from AIDS. Proposed that “any touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person†among teens be criminalized. boy.[96]
Keith Westmoreland, a state representative (R), was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to minors under 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children). [97]
Stephen White, Republican preacher. Was arrested after allegedly offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him. [98] [99]
Why is this troll dink posting over here, anyway?
Because no one ever visits his "blog?"
A predictable reaction.
More proof (superfluous proof, at this point) of the mental illness and astonishing depth of corrupt depravity of the lefty mind.
The subjects obliviously validate the identification and prognoses of their morbid condition by compulsively resorting to the programmed, ritualistic behavior and verbage in the repetetive--and thus predictable--manner which symptomized and flagged that very condition in the first place.
Despite the publicising of the earlier discrediting, neutering, and then serial ineffectiveness of the programmed tactic of "shouting down" the reasoning opposition by their posting of lengthy propaganda sheets handed to them by Kool Aid mixers higher up the food chain in between ad hominems and "hahaha" ridicule (all part of the playbook), when cornered and challenged to think outside of the box, they...
...try to "shout down" the reasoning opposition by their posting of the same lengthy propaganda sheets handed to them by Kool Aid mixers higher up the food chain in between ad hominems and "hahaha" ridicule, thinking that--this time, perhaps magically--a desired result will be achieved.
All of that meets predicted expectations and further confirms the degree of indoctrination that the subjects have been exposed to: Very High.
GDP Shrinks...Job Losses a Staggering 438,000.
A trio of crises - housing, credit and financial - have badly bruised the economy. In response, employers have cut jobs for six months in a row, bringing total losses this year close to nearly a half-million!
Glad to see you boys are back...stay a while this time...this blog is dead otherwise.
Did you see this hilarity from the McCane Carnival?
Abrams: Did McCain spokesman mock candidate on national TV?David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Wednesday July 30, 2008
Republican presidential candidate John McCain shook up his conservative supporters on Sunday when he suggested that he might be prepared to raise Social Security taxes.
By Tuesday, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds had gone on Fox News to perform damage control, insisting repeatedly, "There is no imaginable circumstance where John McCain would raise payroll taxes. It’s absolutely out of the question. ... There's no imaginable circumstance where he would raise taxes."
MSNBC's Dan Abrams asked his guests, "Did I miss something there? Or did John McCain just say it is on the table and then his campaign spokesperson almost mocked it, as if, 'Oh, don't listen to that guy. Come on. He doesn't represent the campaign.'"
Must be maddening to have an economy walking around and still doing jumping jacks after all the obit notices, funeral arrangements, and charges of murder your crowd keeps churning out, Mr. Blivins:
July 31, 2008
By Glenn Somerville
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Expansion accelerated modestly in the second quarter as government stimulus payments helped consumers add more buying punch to the economy, a Commerce Department report on Thursday showed.
Gross Domestic Product or GDP grew at a 1.9 percent annual rate, up from a revised 0.9 percent rate in the first quarter that previously was reported as 1 percent.
And, of course, you can sow doubts about McCain's own "Read My Lips" pledge all you want, but, your deflections notwithstanding, no one in their right mind believes that any government fund-raising by McCain would ever come anywhere near the magnitude of the private industry heist and redistribution that Obama has in mind.
Jumping jacks! Hilarious. Who's the simple, little tool who's following you around?
Here's some more on that, LB...
U.S. Recession May Have Begun in Last Quarter of 2007 (Update2)
By Timothy R. Homan
July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy may have slipped into a recession in the last three months of 2007 as consumer spending slowed more than previously estimated and the housing slump worsened, revised government figures indicated.
The world's largest economy contracted at a 0.2 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter of last year compared with a previously reported 0.6 percent gain, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Growth for the period from 2005 through 2007 was also trimmed.
The revisions now reinforce measures such as employment and production that already signaled the economy was shrinking. The National Bureau of Economic Research, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based arbiter of economic cycles, defines a recession as a ``significant'' decrease in activity over a sustained period of time. The declines would be visible in GDP, payrolls, production, sales and incomes.
``We're in a recession,'' Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics Inc. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. ``It's going to widen, it's going to deepen.''
The government also said incomes grew less than previously thought, raising the risk that consumer spending will again stumble after getting a temporary boost from the tax rebates last quarter.
Amazing how they've got a pack of these simple people climbing their legs even as they kick them all over the place...gotta give them credit for some of the most brilliant brain washing in history. The more they're abused, the more they rush to the side of their abusers.
"Gross Domestic Product or GDP grew at a 1.9 percent annual rate, up from a revised 0.9 percent rate in the first quarter that previously was reported as 1 percent."
That's a jumping jack, Blivins. Maybe a push-up. But it ain't pushing up daisies.
Your insidious crowd is just trying to talk down the economy as loudly and widely as possible in order to suppress consumer confidence because you know it's a major driver of it.
Good job. Consumer confidence is lower than conditions actually warrant.
Of course, when Candidate Bush warned of a looming recession in 2000, you and your crowd screanmed foul and seethed about how unconscionable it was for any candidate to "talk down" an economy for political benefit.
Some of you called it "criminal."
Others "treasonous."
Care to stand by those charges, Mr. Blivins (which I'm damn sure you applauded, if not actually contributing to them)?
But really now. As is usually the case, you were just projecting what you would do if you were Bush (like spy on Americans, wage war for cynical reasons, suppress science that conflicts with an ideological agenda, pack the Justice Dept. with cronies, lie, cheat, and steal).
And your proving it now.
Settle down, I got it:
sp. "you're"
It's the lackey mentality.
They like everyone in their place and resent anyone who fights with The Master. Look at their poor, dumb cow women...no one fought the ERA harder than those suffering moo cows.
They like being low and submissive...it's nice and safe and undemanding.
This explains it:
"It's the lackey mentality.
They like everyone in their place and resent anyone who fights with The Master."
Confession noted.
"Look at their poor, dumb cow women...no one fought the ERA harder than those suffering moo cows.
They like being low and submissive...it's nice and safe and undemanding."
Remember that the next time you suck dick.
Remember, we like it talkless and toothless.
In addition to the half million who totally lost their jobs...
More than 3.7 million Americans have had their full-time jobs cut to part time because of weak business, which is "the largest figure since the government began tracking such data more than half a century ago." The loss of pay has reinforced "the downturn gripping the economy" for millions of American families because "paychecks are shrinking just as home prices plunge and gas prices soar."
Please pass this on...this economy needs talking down.
Are you denying that consumer confidence is a major driver of the economy?
And are you denying a desire--and contributory attempt-- to suppress it?
Are you denying your hope for a catastrophic meltdown, if only because it will make Bush look bad and do to the GOP what the Great Depression did to it with Hoover presiding when it hit?
Are you denying that you and your shameless crowd have been trash-talking the economy non-stop from the first recession, through the recovery, and throughout an expansion which pushed numbers into record, stellar territory?
Are you denying that you feel a sense of vindictive glee as you watch the slowdown and celebrate something that can be held against "McBush," the GOP, and conservatism itself while Obama shamelessly goes about pretending that he's a conservative and will preside over the economy accordingly?
It took them 80 years, but the GOP has finally got us back to '28...
The earnings gap between the wealthy and the middle class is wider than it’s been since 1928.¹
The average worker is making less than he did in 1970.²
¹Source: Cay Johnston, David, Income Gap is Widening, Data Shows, New York Times, March 29, 2007
²Adjusting for inflation, the average non-supervisory American worker makes less than he or she did in 1970. Source: Cay Johnston, David, Income Gap is Widening, Data Shows, New York Times, March 29, 2007
And there are working and middle class pinheads who actually vote for these thieves!!
Less than 24 hours ago, the McCain campaign launched the latest and lowest in a series of misleading attack ads.
This Karl Rove-style ploy misleads people about Barack's energy plan and even mocks his ability to inspire voters and bring Americans back into the political process.
Watchdogs in the media are calling McCain's accusations "bogus," "desperate," "wrong," "misleading," "ugly," "offensive," "reckless," and "a nasty turn into the gutter."
Some in McCain's own party are critical of the ad. One senior Republican strategist quoted by the Washington Post called the latest ad a "wild swing at Obama" that reflects his campaign's "increasing bitterness" and the lack of "any coherent strategy to elect McCain."
Even John Weaver, a strategist who worked for McCain's presidential campaign in 2000 and on his current campaign last year, called the ad "childish," adding that this negative strategy "diminishes John McCain" and "needs to stop."
Spin.
There's more runaway millionaires and billionaires today--in America as well as abroad--than at any other time in history, widening the gap between "The Rich" and "poor."
That being said, today's "poor" is yesterday's (like, 1970's) middle (if not upper) class in terms of standard of living.
No middle-classer today would trade what he has for what a 1970's millionaire did.
The employment rate is still excellent.
The gas prices (and the creeping inflation in other sectors due to oil) is what makes it feel like there's hyper-inflation and a tax-hiking Democrat in the White House, and that's the fault of the environmentalists.
Nevertheless, homeownership remains at record levels, and, furthermore--surprise-- the homeless rate dropped.
And we're much better off than Europe, anyway. They're paying more for gas than we are (and more taxes, too).
Sorry, but that transformed city skyline ain't the silhouette of Hoovervilles, and people aren't rushing for the exits to find work in Mexico.
Quite the opposite, in case you haven't noticed.
You try to invoke a climate of homeless and starving masses--a sign of true economic catastrophe--while the NIH warns of an obesity epidemic.
The GNP is higher today--adjusted for inflation, by trillions of dollars--than it was when Bill Clinton bailed in 2000 with a perjury rap still hanging over his head, half of his "Friend of Bill's" jailed or dead, and with burglarized White House furniture in the moving van as the economic house of cards began to teeter.
Too bad for you that the bottom-line facts don't cooperate with your attempt to peddle a portrait of a ragged, tin-cupping America ravaged by the supposed incompetent management and corrupt excesses of eight-years of Republican rule following some idyllic, Clintonian paradise.
But don't worry. Thanks to a generation of public schooling which replaced Classical liberal thinking with Marxist Critical Theory, there's enough idiots out there who won't know the difference, who I'm sure you're giddily counting on to buy your "America In Decline" bullshit.
Oh, boo-hoo, Simian. This while you character assassins circulate that "Manchurian Candidate" bullshit and try to humiliate McCain about everything from his age to some medical malady where he had to wear a diaper (presumably).
Go to hell.
ANOTHER EVANGELIST FREAK...how many so far this week?
MOBILE, Ala. — Police believe a body found in a small-time evangelist's home freezer is his wife and a mother of eight, and arrested him on a murder charge as he preached at a south Alabama church.
Anthony Hopkins, 37, was being held in the Mobile County jail today awaiting a bond hearing and appointment of an attorney.
Police said no one reported 36-year-old Arletha Hopkins missing, even though she hadn't been heard from in three years. The body was discovered covered in a freezer in a utility room during a police search of the home in Mobile after a relative of the preacher contacted police.
Mobile Police Chief Phillip Garrett said Hopkins was arrested Monday night at at a revival in Jackson, a town in rural Clarke County where he has roots. The pastor of Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, Beverly Jackson, told reporters that Hopkins told her he was a single parent because his wife had died in childbirth.
Police awaited results of forensic tests to determine the cause of death, but Garrett said authorities believe it is Hopkins' wife.
The freezer was moved to a forensics lab.
Garrett said Anthony Hopkins, the father of six of the eight children, has been charged with rape and sodomy in a separate case involving the female relative and could face more charges related to another relative.
Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson Jr. said the children who lived with Hopkins — who ranged in age from 3 to 19 — have been taken into protective custody by the Department of Human Resources.
Garrett said the Hopkins children were home-schooled. He said Hopkins "kept to himself," and apparently moved from place to place. Neighbors called him "Rev." because he attended church so often, loading the children into a van.
Police said he preached at various churches and did not appear to be affiliated with a particular denomination.
At the church in Jackson, Hopkins was delivering a message about forgiveness that drew encouraging "amens" from the congregation.
Clarke County Sheriff's Chief Investigator Sgt. Ron Baggett said he listened through the church door before assisting in the arrest about 10 p.m. Monday. About 25 people were in the congregation at the time.
The United States has the second worst birth-fatality rate in the developed world.
http://thebusinessofbeingborn.com/
"Garrett said Anthony Hopkins, the father of six of the eight children, has been charged with rape and sodomy in a separate case involving the female relative and could face more charges related to another relative."
While your at it, why don't you equate a quack doctor with a trained, licensed physician.
Ricki Lake. That's like Michael Moore sayinmg Cuba's Health Care system is superior to ours.
Fool.
The birth certificate of a child who a tabloid newspaper claims is linked to former Sen. John Edwards doesn't identify a father.
The certificate, obtained by The Charlotte Observer today, shows Frances Quinn Hunter was born Feb. 27, more than two months after an Edwards aide claimed to be the father. Andrew Young, a former Edwards campaign finance director, claimed paternity in a statement from his lawyer posted at the political blog mydd.com.
The girl was born at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, Calif., to Rielle Jaya James Druck, also known as Rielle Hunter. Hunter, 44, was a videographer on Edwards' presidential campaign last year.
Asked Thursday why no father was listed on the birth certificate, Hunter's attorney, Robert Gordon of New York, said, "A lot of women do that." Reminded that he and Hunter had publicly revealed the father's identity two months earlier to the National Enquirer, Gordon said, "That's a personal matter between them."
Gordon declined to comment further.
btw, the GDP numbers came out today. Listening to you, I would think there's been some serious shrinkage.
Surely savvy economy watchers sucgh as yourselves know what they are.
Can you tell me?
Rotten GOP...
'An insurance company's attorney suggested during a sworn deposition that former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott urged witnesses to give false information in a Hurricane Katrina lawsuit, according to court records.. The implication was made last week during a deposition with Lott's nephew, Zach Scruggs, who represented the former Mississippi Republican senator after his Pascagoula home was destroyed by the 2005 storm. Zach Scruggs is the son and law partner of disgraced former attorney Richard ''Dickie'' Scruggs, Lott's brother-in-law.' 8/1
Wouldn't you love to see them get this plastic hair-do prick?
Are all right wingers fascist freaks? Well, I guess that's the definition...
NRA Pays Woman to Spy on Gun Control Movement. She Was Also Paid to Spy on the Environmental Movement and Used Another Name. Spying Comes Naturally to the UnAmerican Benedict Arnolds in Our Midst. Congratulations to Mother Jones for Breaking This Incredibly Disturbing Story in Regards to Our Right to Free Assembly and First Amendment Freedoms.
We were looking over TWI's Congressional (dis)Honor Roll of members of the House and Senate who have been indicted and we wondered, What do all these politicians have in common? Can we find some consistent characteristic that draws these guys to break the law (or just be accused of it)? We're not criminologists, but we perused the list, crunched the numbers, and managed to come up with a set of interesting tidbits and trends.
Of the 102 lawmakers accused of breaking the law, 29, or 28 percent, were acquitted or the charges were dropped. Suddenly the famed Legal Defense Fund seems like a very worthwhile investment. They're almost all men. In fact, we only found one woman: Rep. Bobbi Fiedler, R-Calif., who was accused of a crime. In 1986 she was charged with offering a candidate money to leave the race (her case was dismissed a month later).
The implicated members hail from 31 states. It turns out that the bigger states -- with bigger delegations -- had the most offenses: New York (11), California (8) and Pennsylvania (7). Ohio and New Jersey had six each. A handful of smaller states were surprisingly high on the list for their size, including Maryland with five congressional lawbreakers, Louisiana with four and Idaho with three. The south, the plains and the industrial Midwest have seen the biggest stain of scandal. Except for three incidents in Massachusetts, New England lawmakers have avoided charges. Perhaps they're more upstanding patriots up there (or they're better at covering their tracks).
Republicans have taken the brunt of bad ethics news in the past three years, claiming five of the six indictments since 2005. But with a 55-40 edge, Democrats can take the trophy for most indictments. And before our liberal readers try to argue that the Democratic Party is older, we'll point out that only two of the indictments on our list came before the Republican Party was born in 1854.
Investigators clearly had their work cut out for them in the 1970s and 1980s, charging 41 members of Congress then compared with just 18 indictments since 1990. Still, the last few years have brought some entertaining incidents, like Sen. Larry's Craig's "wide stance" in the bathroom and Rep. William Jefferson's cold cash in the freezer.
With all these lawmakers roaming federal penitentiaries, perhaps we should start investigating their earmarks. Were they steering our tax dollars toward their prisons?
Despite the publicising of the earlier discrediting, neutering, and then serial ineffectiveness of the programmed tactic of "shouting down" the reasoning opposition by their posting of lengthy propaganda sheets handed to them by Kool Aid mixers higher up the food chain in between ad hominems and "hahaha" ridicule (all part of the playbook), when cornered and challenged to think outside of the box, they...
...try to "shout down" the reasoning opposition by their posting of the same lengthy propaganda sheets handed to them by Kool Aid mixers higher up the food chain in between ad hominems and "hahaha" ridicule, thinking that--this time, perhaps magically--a desired result will be achieved.
All of that meets predicted expectations and further confirms the degree of indoctrination that the subjects have been exposed to: Very High.
It also meets Freud's definition of insanity.
Joe Klein: 'A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign. I was wrong. I used to think, as David Ignatius does, that McCain's true voice was humble and moderate, but now I'm beginning to think his Senate colleagues may be right about his temperament.' 8/1
Federal Judge Rules White House Aides Bolten and Miers Can be Subpoenaed. Big Boost to the Constitution and the Separation of Powers. Also, the Ruling was by a Bush Appointed Judge, Judge John Bates.
Even the Crime Family is turning on them...
Responsibility from the MSM?? Andrea Mitchell Leads Media Pushback On McCain Ad 7/31
I think they should see Klein's actual comments, don't you, Simes?...they're absolutely devastating...what a disappointing prostitute the GOP candidate has turned out to be!!!
The New Normal: McCain's Desperate Ad Hours
Posted by: David Kiley on July 28
The McCain campaign had adopted an ad strategy that has been dubbed “desperate” by Time Magazine political columnist Joe Klein. Klein was writing in response to this latest ad from McCain’s new ad/communications honcho Steve Schmidt.
Klein writes that a candidate airs tis ad only if: “1. You’re desperate.
2. Your Middle East policy has been superseded by events and abandoned by your allies. 3. You apparently have nothing substantive to say about America’s future role in the region and the world.”
“If you watched both Obama and McCain on the morning shows today, you saw one candidate who was at ease, confident but not flawless (Obama’s answer on the Surge still seems too grudging), and another who was tense and almost entirely negative. There used to be another John McCain—charming, open, unpredictable. I wonder where he went; the McCain who appeared on the air today seemed too much a scold, too little a statesman.”
Obama’s cancellation of a visit in Germany to visit wounded U.S. troops has been adequately explained: that his campaign was advised by the Pentagon that since Obama was on a campaign trip and spending campaign resources, it would be viewed as using the wounded as props whether cameras were allowed in the hospital or not.
This ad asserts a McCain campaign talking-point that Obama wouldn’t make time for wounded troops unless cameras were allowed to follow him, but did make time to work out at a gym. This, of course, is a lie. It’s a blatant lie. Steve Schmidt, a disciple of Karl Rove’s who worked on George W. Bush’s 2004 ad/communications effort, though, is playing the Rovian playbook that says that it doesn’t matter if it’s true as long as your target audience (non-college educated white working class voters) won’t bother to find out the actual truth, and believe that it “sounds like it might be a true.”
For the second time in a week the non-partisan www.factcheck.org takes McCain to task for a false ad [false, btw, is another word for lie].
And USA Today wrote an editorial about last week’s ad scam from McCain, blaming Obama for higher gas prices. The paper wrote: “Even by the elastic standards of political ads, this is more than a stretch. It’s baloney. It’s also a marker on the path toward the kind of simplistic, counterproductive demonizing that many expect will poison the fall campaign.”
What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was...wait for it...using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.
This is what some people are calling the Hannity strategy. Right wing nut-muffin Sean Hannity employs a slick strategy of repeating canards very quickly over and over, day in and day out, which aren’t challenged by his TV co-host Alan Colmes or by any of his radio listeners. By relentlessly repeating falsehoods day after day, the theory goes, it becomes embedded in the media. There is truth in this. In 2004, the Bush campaign ran an ad and daily repeated that John Kerry was a flip flopper, running a Kerry clip with the Democratic candidate saying he voted for an $87 billion military appropriation before he voted against it. It sounded bad when ripped out of context. Kerry voted for it in committee, and then voted against in on a floor vote when the bill included giveaways to Halliburton he didn’t support.
The distortion took on a life of its own, parroted by mainstream media including Chris Matthews, and even the Tom Brokaw and the late Tim Russert. It is a case study in how effective advertising can work when it is done relentlessly and consistently…even if its untrue. Hannity enployed the same strategy conflating a passing acquaintance between Obama and former unconvicted Weather Underground activist William Ayers with "an association" with Obama...for months. He talked it up every day. He finally goaded ABC's George Stephanopoulus to ask Obama about it in a televised debate. It didn't matter that Obama has nothing that could be construed by a thinking person like "an association" with Ayers. He raised the question just by repeating it daily.
Welcome to the new McCain cum Schmidt cum Rove campaign.
I've written good things about McCain's ads in the past, and I expect I will again if they ever return to a level of at least being for grown-ups.
By the way, lest Hannity try and pretend that he isn’t a tool of virtually any GOP campaign, it’s worth noting that he echoed almost point for point the actual daily McCain campaign talking points on Obama's trip last Friday night, including his “takeaway from the Obama trip” that he had time to work out in a gym but not visit the troops in the hospital. Hannity went into the tank again the same night that former White House press secretary Scott McClellan told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that the White House does, in fact, provide Hannity and other Fox News and on-air talent their daily and weekly policy “talking points.” We knew that, but it’s nice to hear someone admit it who was in on the transaction.
Wow. Sounds like great news from Iraq, on the economy, and in the polls today put you in desperate overdrive on the bullshit production to deflect from the great news from Iraq, on the economy, and in the polls.
Kind of like Obama protesting way too much, me knows, about being compared to Paris Hilton.
That hit too close to home.
Now he's playing the race card, forgetting that he packaged himself as a post-racial candidate and was above all that.
And Mr. Smooth Talker is doing a lot of "Uh" and "Um" and "Uh-uh-uh" when away from the teleprompters.
No wonder he's afraid to meet Mac in a Town Hall forum.
And now he's turning to a pro-life governor for veep because it's becoming more and more known how radically liberal he really is (a supporter even of the odious partial birth abortion procedure, on demand).
This because conservatism is "DEEEEEEEEEEEAD," supposedly, as shit-for-brains here exulted.
And that while Obama undergoes a pro-gun, pro-Capital Punishment, pro-flag pin, and anti-gay marriage metamorphosis right before our eyes and practically overnight.
This from the candidate of "Change."
Did he mean like a chameleon?
Your golden boy is in trouble, and you know it.
Now there's a new book out on him. Veeeeery revealing indeed. Doesn't quite square with his own "Man From Hope" narrative.
No surprise. It turns out the last "Man From Hope"--Clinton--really grew up in the casino and prostitution town of Hot Springs.
It's same-ol-same-ol' image over substance that the Left has been relying on for a decades now to get their empty suits through.
Fortunately for you jokers, in a Paris Hilton and Ludakriss culture, that guarantees him lots and lots of publicity and photo-ops with screaming throngs of teeny-boppers and endorsements from gangsta rappers (a.k.a. "The People").
Unfortunately, that shit won't fly in Peoria.
And, as usual, behind every lefty hides Marx, but his bigg butt is beginning to stick out more and more in plain vew.
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! I AM OZAMA, the Great and Powerful!"
lol
Yup. You guys are in BIG trouble.
Lotsa luck!
More bad news for GM; 'The General Motors Corporation reported a stunning second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion on Friday because of a dramatic decline in United States sales and charges for job cuts, plant closings and the falling value of trucks and sport utility vehicles.' 8/2
Jobless Rate Climbs to 5.7% as 51,000 Jobs Lost in July
As widely predicted, the Bush Stimulus was a BIG BUST.
Note...Cheney's financial mgr. now downgrades econ's prospects...
.
AP - The country didn't get the energetic rebound in economic growth hoped for from the government's tax rebates in the second quarter, and the economy jolted into reverse at the end of 2007, raising new recession fears.
NYT: G.D.P. Grows at Tepid 1.9% Pace Despite Stimulus
The economy grew less than expected from April to June, the government said on Thursday, and it shrank in the final months of 2007, dimming the outlook for a quick recovery.
Jeremy Grantham, legendary investor and the man who manages Dick Cheney's own portfolio now thinks we will have a global recession (before, he thought emerging markets would escape):
Economically, most emerging countries really looked to have decoupled for 18 months as we slowed and they did not. But in a global recession no one decouples. As German, French, and British growth slowed rapidly in the last 6 weeks, a global slowdown looks more likely and more painful. To this end, we have done an about face and lowered our weightings in emerging equities to neutral or just below. To critics of this change, I would cite the quote attributed to Keynes, caught in the same predicament: "When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?"
Nouriel Roubini, by contrast, never bought the decoupling thesis, as he reminds us in his latest post:
There is now fresh evidence that at least a dozen major economies and some emerging markets are at risk of a recessionary hard landing. The list includes:
United States
Japan
United Kingdom
Spain
Ireland
Italy
Portugal
Canada
New Zealand
Estonia
Latvia
Some other South-Europe emerging markets
Moreover, even in the rest of the Eurozone (Germany, France, etc,) there is now evidence of a sharp growth deceleration as industrial production is falling in all of the Eurozone, business confidence is down, consumer confidence is down and retail sales are flat or falling….
So while we will not experience a global recession we will get close to one as the US will have a severe recession, Japan is entering one, a third of Europe will go into a recession, the rest of Europe will have a severe growth slowdown…"
I wonder if you guys realize what a grotesque and interesting resource you've got following you around in John.
Apart from being very weird, redundant and ludicrously pretensious, he is a walking case history of a truly insane ability at self delusion...wow, hang on to this boy.
And, hey, John, I'm so happy the sun is shining wherever you've got your weird, flaky head. Thumbs up, good buddy.
sure it does said...
where's that guy who was asking about Sayet's jail time?
why do you assume that it's a guy? and the jail time was for dui...automatic jail time for that in most states......
john edwards? he's not running for anything. why is there any interest in him at all?
How many DUI counts did he have against him?
Is that a GOPersonal resposibility thing of his?
Anonymous said...
john edwards? he's not running for anything. why is there any interest in him at all?
Are you serious?
This, if it occurred at all, is an affair between two consenting adults of differing genders!!
The wingo finds this horrifying. If it isn't some seedy, family values monster sticking his dick in a child, something from a different species or phylum, or into a member of the same gender, they find it morally repellent.
Bush inherited a $ 128 billion budget surplus and turned it into a $ 482 billion deficit—an estimate, incidentally, that leaves out the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re off the books, a bit like Enron’s money-losing “partnerships.” In retrospect, the Enron collapse clearly predicted the fiscal consequences of Bushism.
Psychiatrists call it magical thinking. Today it defines American culture. For decades GOP propagandists have endlessly pushed the fantasy that cutting taxes invariably brings more revenue into the treasury. Because it’s so counterintuitive, it makes people who think Rush Limbaugh is an intellectual feel smart. So they get their big $ 247.32 tax cut; Scrooge McDuck gets a few millions more to paddle around in; the pie theoretically gets higher and higher.
It’s the Republican equivalent of Marxist cant about the “withering away of the state” under communism: An objectively false belief that’s repeated with ever more fervor as its bad consequences become harder to deny.
I see your point, Larry. But he's just another dull, little pinhead to us...these freaks are interesting only in their aggregate...as the pests who've brought the country to the brink of ruin. Nobody but you even reads the simpleton...same old cant every one of these semi-people put out. We stomped them on his blog so bad that now he just can't let go.
"We stomped them on his blog so bad that now he just can't let go."
Yeah, sure. That's it. That's why all you little terrorists fled my blog faster than al Qaeda has fled Iraq: Because you "won" there, and that I followed you back here hot on your heels as you beat back a hasty retreat proves it.
Back where you began, all you can do you-- as usual-- is try to "shout down" the reasoning opposition by your posting of the same lengthy propaganda sheets handed to you by Kool Aid mixers higher up the food chain in between ad hominems and "hahaha" ridicule, thinking that--this time, perhaps magically--a desired result will be achieved.
Again, all of that meets predicted expectations and further confirms the degree of indoctrination that you have been exposed to: Very High.
And it meets Freud's definition of insanity.
Meanwhile, having exposed your repetetive, tactical m.o. to the point of predictability a long time ago, you've only managed to improve the counter-insurgency tactics used against you and assure their unmitigated success.
Actually, I must acknowledge you're innovation from the usual routine:
Reverse child psychology.
That one caught me off guard, I must admit.
I really didn't think that the degradation of your arsenal from semi-sophisticated i.e.d.'s to slings and arrows to sticks and stones would have reached depletion so quickly.
You've gone from wearing strap-on vests to pulling out the squirt-guns.
Here's what you can look forward to:
Making you see the error of your ways and/or stfu is about as likely as asking a person with a Tourette's Syndrome to watch his mouth.
But I might as well have some fun trying. I'm going to bury you neck deep at the end of a putting green and putt golf balls into your opening-and-closing mouths.
The commentary section at Mr. Sayet's blog will no longer be a terrorist cell of insurgents, but a miniature golf course.
So keep those windmills turning and the loop-da-loops loopy. I have a new set of clubs I need to break in.
Larry Blivious: Thanks, pal. You too. Keep that thumb up there.
P.S. Larry: It's spelled "pretentious."
Ava mocked:
"This, if it occurred at all..."
lol Ava's funny.
"...is an affair between two consenting adults of differing genders!!
The wingo finds this horrifying."
Nah. Just devious. He consented to a binding contract with another adult first.
I think the ailing and now breached Mrs. Edwards and the kids are the ones who are horrified.
But maybe they should grow up and show a little gratitude. They have daddy's eager little wee-wee to thank for being where they are to begin with.
Don't you agree?
Hey, I keep telling you guys this John is a sicko to keep prodding...he provides some funny material.
John, you silly, pretensious, little pedant...both spellings are correct, though the t is used more often. And that's just the most obvious way you made a fool of yourself.
As I've gathered, you were so frightened of liberal comments you started deleting all of them...
Yeah, that's really putting the boots to them.
You're a coward who has been so badly beaten that your ego is involved and now you're obsessed with "redeeming" your bleeding self image.
Lotsa luck with that one...so far you've just made a bigger fool of yourself and no one but me even bothers to read your stuff...and I do that only for grotesque entertainment.
Oh...the more I read the more I see why they were all laughing at you.
What do you do...just keep cutting and pasting this same shrill, stupid paragraph...
Back where you began, all you can do you-- as usual-- is try to "shout down" the reasoning opposition by your posting of the same lengthy propaganda sheets handed to you by Kool Aid mixers higher up the food chain in between ad hominems and "hahaha" ridicule, thinking that--this time, perhaps magically--a desired result will be achieved.
Again, all of that meets predicted expectations and further confirms the degree of indoctrination that you have been exposed to: Very High.
And it meets Freud's definition of insanity.
Wow...now that is the very definition of a desperate attempt to convince yourself...
hahahahaha...
oh, sorry...that's not like me. I just couldn't help it in this case. It's the kind of reaction you must be accustomed to incurring.
A thirty year head start we could have had shot in the ass...
John Warner: Jimmy Carter Was Right
Friday, August 1, 2008
It took 30 years, but Jimmy Carter finally has gotten recognition for the wisdom of his energy policies. Speaking on Science Friday, Senator John Warner, a Republican from Virginia who first entered the Senate during Carter's term in office, said that Jimmy Carter "was right" when he called for a massive program of energy conservation and alternative energy research.
Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat from New Mexico, agreed. As chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, one would expect a fellow democrat to back the former President. But I must admit I was a bit surprised to hear Warner readily agree. Jimmy Carter has a tough time being called "right" about anything in his administration, let alone from Republicans. Warner has recently discovered the threat posed by global warming through his discussions with Pentagon brass who are concerned about the submerging of Naval ports around the world as the oceans rise. Though he is late to the ball, Warner readily admitted the country was asleep at the switch for the last three decades.
However, concern for global warming is universal on Capitol Hill this week or even bi-partisan enough to extend the tax credits for the development of alternative energy sources like solar and wind. Bingaman, a champion of the credits, complained that huge alternative energy projects on the drawing boards will reamain there, if the credits are not restored. Once again, for the up-teenth time, not enough Senators voted for extension of the credits.
Hey, I keep telling you guys this John is a sicko to keep prodding...he provides some funny material."
It's "John is a sicko *so* (not "to,"
Larry) keep prodding."
"John, you silly, pretensious, little pedant...both spellings are correct, though the t is used more often. And that's just the most obvious way you made a fool of yourself."
You're wrong, fool. The "s" in "pretense" is dropped in the adjective "pretentious."
Look it up. I know you don't have the class to apologize and stand corrected, but it's enough that you made an arrogant assertion of "fact" that was DEAD WRONG after calling me the "pretensious little pendant" for being right.
That pretty much sums up the leftie.
"As I've gathered, you were so frightened of liberal comments you started deleting all of them..."
So you were one of the "anonymous" pests there, eh blivious?
Do you really think it was "cowardice," blivins? Come on. There's only one way to deal with noisy blabbermouths who won't stfu after being asked politely to umpteen times.
The fight was over, and it was overkill. You were Monty Python's black knights.
And you were counting on Alinsky's Rule #4 to keep you alive but forgot #7.
"Yeah, that's really putting the boots to them."
Yes. It really is. What more can I say? You goons come in and don't participate in any give-and-take or even offer intelligent criticism. You add ZERO to the topic and instead wallpaper the place with other people's articles and editorials and hit pieces from Kos and Moveon and then personally insult my guests for good measure, all along daring me to boot you on pain of being called a "coward."
Well, fine. I'm a "coward." Now gtfo.
Problem solved.
"You're a coward who has been so badly beaten that your ego is involved and now you're obsessed with 'redeeming' your bleeding self image."
That's a good one, blivious. Make that up yourself?
...or did you plagiarize it from Republicus' own assessment of you and your goons?
That's right, I said it first. Try to think for yourself for once.
"Lotsa luck..."
That too, just a few posts up. Come on, blivins, get your own material.
"...with that one. So far you've just made a bigger fool of yourself and no one but me even bothers to read your stuff..."
Then you know who the "pretensious" fool is, fool. But don't worry. No one's going to read this but you.
Here, watch:
LARRY BLIVINS IS A POMPOUS ASS AND A FOOL.
See? No one heard that.
Please, continue:
"...and I do that only for grotesque entertainment."
Come on, blivins. Drop the act.
"Oh...the more I read the more I see why they were all laughing at you."
What? Who?
"They?" "All?" "Everyone?" "The People?"
Who are you talking about, Larry? Moe & Curly?
"What do you do...just keep cutting and pasting this same shrill, stupid paragraph..."
Projection. You and your goons are the psycho cut & pasters par excellence, both here and at Republicus, and you know it.
I'd prove it if I didn't delete all the triplicates.
"And it meets Freud's definition of insanity."
"Wow...now that is the very definition of a desperate attempt to convince yourself..."
I'm already convinced.
"hahahahaha...
oh, sorry...that's not like me. I just couldn't help it in this case."
Liar. That's all you. You're the "anonymous" who comes by Republicus and uses those annoying pseudonyms here and always tries to break the ice of your mortification with your defensive "hahahaha."
If not, the cloning of you zombies is astonishing. You all sound the same.
And you all sound like chicks.
That's the liberal castrati for you.
"It's the kind of reaction you must be accustomed to incurring."
I am accustomed to that. I'm a very funny man. The chicks love it.
Wow. The Democratic Congress' approval rating is down to 14%. Why, that's a record! Aw. And you were all so happy when they won in '06. What did you call it again? Oh, yeah, a "mandate."
That's pretty funny.
blivins. Are you the dork houstonmod?
ava said...
How many DUI counts did he have against him?
Is that a GOPersonal resposibility thing of his?
two,at least. he has other problems, too.
"criminal, n. A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation"
Howard Scott
Florida bank closed by FDIC
First Priority Bank becomes the eighth bank failure of the year. Branches will reopen as Sun Trust Bank.
By Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: August 1, 2008: 8:45 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Federal regulators closed Florida's First Priority Bank on Friday, marking the eighth bank failure of the year.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which was named the receiver of the failed bank, entered into an agreement with Atlanta-based SunTrust Bank (STI, Fortune 500) to assume the insured deposits of First Priority.
All six branches of the Bradenton, Fla.-based bank will reopen on Monday as branches of SunTrust. First Priority depositors will automatically become depositors of SunTrust, the FDIC said.
First Priority had assets of $259 million and total deposits of $227 million, according to the FDIC. That includes $13 million in uninsured deposits held in approximately 840 accounts that potentially exceeded the federal insurance limits.
Account holders with more than the $100,000 insured limit will essentially "become a creditor" of the failed bank, said FDIC spokesman Andrew Gray.
Those accounts will be credited as the FDIC sells more of the failed bank's assets, Gray said.
SunTrust Bank will purchase approximately $42 million of the failed First Priority's assets, which are made up of mainly cash, cash equivalents and securities.
And LNV Corp. of Plano, Texas, a subsidiary of Beal Bank Nevada, will purchase $14 million in First Priority's assets.
The remaining $171 million in assets will be sold by the FDIC. Proceeds of these sales will be used to pay creditors including bank clients whose accounts exceed the $100,000 limit.
Customers with accounts in excess of $100,000 should contact the FDIC toll free at 1-800-837-0215.
The scene of John McCain – during the anthrax attacks in October 2001 – opining to David Letterman that Iraq might be responsible underscores McCain’s central role in what may go down as one of the biggest strategic blunders in U.S. military history, the premature pivot from Afghanistan to Iraq.
Not only has it been clear for many years that McCain’s speculation about Iraq’s role in the anthrax attacks was reckless – made even more apparent by the FBI now pinning the crime on dead U.S. bio-defense scientist Bruce Ivins – but McCain also told Letterman in that Oct. 18, 2001, interview that “the second phase is Iraq.”
In other words, barely a month after the 9/11 attacks and while the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan was still underway, McCain was already eying a war against Iraq.
...On Feb. 2, 2002, McCain addressed the Munich Conference on Security Policy, giving a speech with the ambitious title, “From Crisis to Opportunity: American Internationalism and the New Atlantic Order.”
In it, McCain laid out the full neoconservative case for turning U.S. attention quickly toward Iraq.
“The next front is apparent, and we should not shirk from acknowledging it,” McCain said. “A terrorist resides in Baghdad, with the resources of an entire state at his disposal, flush with cash from illicit oil revenues and proud of a decade-long record of defying the international community's demands that he come clean on his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.
”A day of reckoning is approaching.”
On March 19, 2003, Bush fulfilled McCain’s dream by launching the invasion of Iraq, succeeding in ousting Hussein’s government in three weeks but then finding a large U.S. expeditionary force tied down by a stubborn insurgency for the next five-plus years.
Captured al-Qaeda documents make clear that bin Laden and his inner circle viewed the U.S. attack on Iraq as a welcome gift, a chance for them to rebuild their organization inside Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country where al-Qaeda had old allies in the tribal regions and historic ties to Pakistan’s shadowy intelligence agency, the ISI.
Al-Qaeda’s Iraq strategy was summed up in a letter that a senior al-Qaeda leader, known as “Atiyah,” sent to Jordanian terrorist Musab al-Zarqawi in December 2005, urging Zarqawi, who was leading the "al-Qaeda in Iraq" contingent, to tone down his aggressiveness and take more time because “prolonging the war is in our interest.”
[To view this excerpt in a translation published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, click here. To read the entire letter, click here. ]
During Campaign 2008, McCain has sought to focus public attention on the supposed success of Bush’s “surge” strategy, which began in 2007 with the addition of about 30,000 more U.S. troops in Iraq.
Aided by the superficiality of the U.S. news media, McCain so far has been able to escape any significant criticism for his role in the central blunder of the “war on terror,” the premature pivot from Afghanistan to Iraq.
Besides playing into bin Laden’s hands, the U.S. concentration of forces in Iraq also enabled the Taliban to regroup and turn Afghanistan into an increasingly lethal front for American and NATO soldiers.
Recent U.S. intelligence also suggests that al-Qaeda is now preparing new terrorist attacks from its base camps inside Pakistan and is redirecting Islamic jihadists from Iraq to the Afghan-Pakistani theater, which always appears to have been al-Qaeda’s main concern even as Bush tried to sell the American people on the idea that the “central front” was Iraq.
Having not dealt decisively with the Taliban/al-Qaeda threat in 2001-02, the U.S. military now anticipates many more bloody years battling for Afghanistan and may have to conduct more cross-border aerial attacks inside Pakistan, possibly destabilizing that nuclear-armed country.
In many ways, this worsening Afghan fiasco can be traced back to McCain’s loose speculation about anthrax and his neoconservative pronouncements of almost seven years ago.
[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “McCain’s Afghan Strategic Blunder.” To view McCain on the Letterman show, click below:
Robert Parry
How many DUI counts did he have against him?
Is that a GOPersonal resposibility thing of his?
two,at least. he has other problems, too.
You can tell he's psycho from the strange phrasing and endless, unnatural repetitions. I heard his wife was involved in his "other problems."
What are you doing here, anyway? You're like Cindy Sheehan and the Code Pinkers camping out in Crawford. Same mentality.
And you only confirm Mr. Sayet's psychological profiles of you.
Unitarian Forgiveness
By: Nicole Belle on Wednesday, July 30th
I am a Unitarian.
That should be such a simple, insignificant statement of fact, nothing more than just another box on a census form to tick. Today, however, it feels more like a war cry.
This is a difficult post for me to write because my emotions are so knotted it’s hard to make sense of what I feel. I am ashamed to admit that my first, overwhelming emotion was intense anger - not so much at Jim Adkisson, the man who walked into a Unitarian church in Knoxville and opened fire on innocent people, killing two and injuring eight more. That happens, unfortunately, with all too frequent regularity in America these days, and for a depressingly repetitive litany of reasons - depression, frustration, confused anger and overlooked or ignored mental illness. The Adkisson killings is not an uncommon event these days.
What is, however, was his target - Unitarians. Members of a church renown for its pacifism, compassion and tolerance. We welcome anyone - men and women of any colour and nationality, of any religious or ethnic background, or sexuality. We even welcome conservatives.
My anger instead is concentrated on those people who callously use such vulnerable people, stirring up their bigotry and discontent, egging them to acts of violence. People like Michelle Malkin, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh who have made lucrative careers out of liberal-bashing. People who write things like “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder”, “Let Freedom Ring,” and “The O’Reilly Factor,” - all literature found in Adkisson’s home after the shooting. People like Ann Coulter who advocated attacking liberals with baseball bats. The hate-filled spewage from the right-wing media mavens is and should be held accountable for inciting such acts of violence and murder, those heartless, soulless, conscienceless opportunists who have gleefully participated in encouraging the Adkissons of America to take out their anger and hatred and frustration on liberals.
People died. Good people, decent caring loving people, with friends and families. They had names: Linda Kraeger and Greg McKendry, a sixty-one year old woman and a foster father who heroically sacrificed his life to save children and his fellow congregation. They had friends and family and people who loved them and will grieve for their loss.
I make my living writing, words are my stock and trade. I have no words adequate enough to express my utter contempt and loathing at this moment for every rabid talk show host and every smarmy pundit who ever espoused the killing or injury of another human being because of his or her political beliefs. If I could, I’d have every single one of them arrested as accessories to murder. The blood on their hands is not metaphorical any longer - it’s real. And they know it, if the bizarre backpedalling of the Malkinesque-ilk is to be believed, so desperate to distance themselves from such actual blood and death that they can shamelessly claim Adkisson is really a liberal trying to discredit conservatives. Despicable.
The blogosphere is already ripping into that moral sickness that has so pervaded the rightwing that such acts have become not only possible, but excusable - a couple posters on the Free Republic had little sympathy for the dead; what kind of Christian church, after all, not only accepts gays but would even think of putting on a production of ‘Annie’? Grounds enough for mass murder, to that warped mindset.
But… I am a Unitarian.
And in the wake of the anger is pride. Despite my sadness that people were targeted for their choice of church, I have never before been so proud to be a Unitarian, as well as a liberal. Those liberals the rightwing continue to denigrate as weak-kneed cowards proved to be anything but. McKendry was the first to confront Adkisson, to stop him from going any further into the church, before several men rushed Adkisson after several shots had been fired, his victims already covered in blood. They have names too: A history professor, John Bohstedt, and Jamie Parkey, just ordinary people. But people who still prove the very best in America still exists. ‘Someone grabbed the gun and we just kind of dog-piled him to the floor’, Parkey said. His wife, Amy, described Adkisson - not as a villain, not as an evil man, not with hatred - but as ‘a man who was hurt in the world and feeling nothing was going his way. He turned the gun on people who were mostly likely to treat him lovingly and compassionately and be the ones to help someone in that situation.’ I wept when I read those words.
Because… I am a Unitarian.
I was born and raised in a faith that teaches tolerance and acceptance and forgiveness. At the moment, it’s quite difficult for me to live up to the tenets of my faith, but I’ve lived my entire life following them, if sometimes imperfectly. Hate is easy. Blame and criticism and anger and revenge are easy. It’s what those talk show hosts and political pundits and politicians on the right have exploited to cultivate their poisonous atmosphere - and I don’t want to be anything like them.
So I will choose the hard way. I will try to forgive the Adkissons of the world who have been manipulated and conned into violence. I don’t think I’m quite ready yet to forgive the Coulters and the O’Reillys and the Malkins and the Limbaughs of this world just yet… but I will try to work on not hating them quite as much as I know they hate me. It’s a step. Maybe tomorrow I can do better.
Today Our Kid forwarded me an email from Cilla Raughley, the UUA’s District Executive, sent out to congregational ministers, religious educators, and board presidents. In it she pleaded for calm, patience and wisdom. And asked that Unitarians might want to wear UU T-shirts or jewelry to show their solidarity with those who share our religious values, whether they are Unitarians or not. She also asked that anyone wishing to send a remembrance card on behalf of Greg McKendry and his widow, Barbara, could do so: Tennessee Valley UU Church, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919-4624, as well as to the neighbouring Westside Unitarian Fellowship, 616 Fretz Road, Knoxville, TN 37919-1604, which is where Linda Kraeger would have normally been on a Sunday morning.
And if a reminder was ever needed why I am and will always be a Unitarian, it is that during the candlelight service held in memory of those who died, a few of the children who had been performing in the cast of ‘Annie’ broke into song. They sang ‘Tomorrow’, in a heart-wrenching reminder that the sun will come out tomorrow.
This is Kool Aid and beyond the pale.
If this letter is authentic, this woman should be ashamed herself.
She's a hateful, textbook leftist who took the opportunity to exploit this sad event to score cheap, political points in her own personal crusade against conservativsm, a crusade that was not jump started by the event, as she implies, but one that she has been emotionally invested in for quite some time.
"We welcome anyone - men and women of any colour and nationality, of any religious or ethnic background, or sexuality. We even welcome conservatives."
Right. "Even" conservatives."
"I have no words adequate enough to express my utter contempt and loathing at this moment for every rabid talk show host and every smarmy pundit who ever espoused the killing or injury of another human being because of his or her political beliefs."
Like the ones who popped the champagne with news of the deaths of Tony Snow and Jesse Helms?
Or the ones who cheer terrorists and insurgents who kill our troops?
Or openly express their desire for a POTUS and his veep to be assassinated?
"If I could, I’d have every single one of them arrested as accessories to murder."
Gee, that's "forgiving."
(note that she forgives the actual killer, though, as one who was "used," "egged on," and "conned")
"The blogosphere is already ripping into that moral sickness that..."
...says stuff like this:
"Are Christians the sickest pack of slime on the planet or what?
Just think. They used to be able to burn you for saying that...now, we just shove it down their throats."
and:
"...yas, the holy bible...foulest piece of pornographic shit on the planet."
(and that just from the lefty trolls at Sayet's conservative blog here, orcs migrating from the Mordor of Kos, Moveon, etc.)
Anyway:
"It’s what those talk show hosts and political pundits and politicians on the right have exploited to cultivate their poisonous atmosphere -"
Like Keith Olbermann, Al Franken, Al Gore, Michael Moore, Janeane Garofalo, etc.?
"...and I don’t want to be anything like them."
She means being "hateful," but while she tries hard--and insipidly-- to "prove" what a loving, forgiving person she--a "proud" Unitarian!--is throughout the therapeutic, brain-washing middle of her plea (i.e. unlike hateful "them"), she betrays her crystallized malice by the bookending of her argument with this at the beginning:
"I have no words adequate enough to express my utter contempt and loathing at this moment..." (i.e. blind, irrational hate)
And this at the end:
"… but I will try to work on not hating them quite as much as I know they hate me."
She admits that she hates them "much," so much that even she realizes that it's excessive, and will "work on" toning it down a bit, to a more acceptable Hate-Lite.
Typically (for a leftist), she illogically justifies her admitted, personal hate by clairvoyantly premising that "they," personally--people who don't even know she exists--
hate her "more," if not "first," so it's understandable, it's "okay," it's even justified that she hate them "back."
What we're seeing here is precisely what Ann Coulter was talking about vis-a-vis Cindy Sheehan and the Jersey Girls.
While Ms. Sheehan and the Jersey Girls demand authority--and immunity--from political attacks because Ms. Sheehan's son was a casualty of war and the Jersey Girls lost their husbands at the WTC on 9/11, Ms. Belle similarly--but with even more dubious credentials--sees fit to exploit the isolated incident at the Unitarian church to denounce the conservative movement and its luminaries and implicate them in murder and call for their arrest as accessories to it, done with authority and immunuity because:
"I...am a Unitarian." (three times)
"Forgiveness" my foot.
This harpy is trying to play the role of Nero scapegoating the Christians for the burning of Rome and fanning the flames of hate and brutal persecution of them.
For the second time:
blivious. Are you the dork houstonmod?
Pity the Poor Yacht Owners of America: "Durand Blane measures the rising cost of filling her husband's 75-foot, white motor yacht by what the money would buy at the mall. ``It's like pumping Chanel bags into a boat hull,'' said Blane from the well-scrubbed deck of the Durand-Marie docked at the West Wind Marina in Newport, Rhode Island. ``Every time we fill up, it's like two Chanel bags, minus the wallet.''
Has America Become Fascist?
Does the Pope get the tightest nuns?
By Sherwood Ross
Aug 1 2008
If it hasn't gone the way of Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany, it sure is teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens (New Orleans), tortures its enemies (Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire (Iran), flouts international treaties (UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on (FISA), and intimidates, its critics (No Fly). Americans that can clearly see the totalitarian machinations of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Hu Jintao in China are blind to the fascism threatening to envelop them as well.
Webster's defines fascism as "a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism." A comparison of 20th century fascist and communist regimes with President Bush's USA indicates the machinery for a full-blown totalitarian takeover is now in place, even if no coup has occurred. As Naomi Wolf writes in "The End of America" (Chelsea Green) the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill's Section 333 allows the president "to declare martial law and take charge of the National Guard troops without the permission of a governor when 'public order' has been lost..." and to "send the guard into our streets during a public health emergency, terrorist attack or 'other condition.'"
The enabling crowbar was the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It gives the president authority to set up his own system for bringing alien combatants to trial while denying them protection of the Geneva Conventions. "The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to designate any American citizen he chooses as being an 'enemy combatant,'" Wolf writes of power usurpation that characterized the post-World War One epoch in Europe and Asia.
Thus, Congress has empowered Bush just as Germany's Reichstag empowered Hitler, Wolf writes, recalling Hitler's boast, "Democracy will be overthrown with the tools of democracy." Hitler's Interior Minister issued Clause 2 that gave police the power to hold people in custody indefinitely and without a court order, powers the U.S. Congress today has conferred upon "The Decider" in the White House. Mussolini's used the less grandiose "Il Duce" or "The Leader."
According to Michael Ratner, director of the Center For Constitutional Rights, New York, "the president can...designate people enemy combatants and detain them for whatever reason he wants...there are no charges and prisoners have no lawyers, no family visits, no court reviews, no rights to anything, and no right to release until the mythical end to the 'war on terror.'"
Wolf writes that dictators justify their usurpation of domestic liberties by raising the alarm of "terrorist" threats. Stalin, for example, used this very term in 1934 when he warned his public of a world-wide conspiracy by capitalists to overthrow the Soviet state. If there have been no mass arrests of native-born Americans it is only because the president has not chosen to exercise this authority. If you think it can't happen to you, recall that in September of 2003 the Army arrested 36-year-old American-born Muslim chaplain James Yee, a West Point graduate, allegedly for "espionage and possibly treason"---but more likely for calling for better conditions for Gitmo inmates. Wolf wrote:
"He was blindfolded; his ears were blocked; he was manacled and then put into solitary confinement for 76 days; forbidden mail, television, or anything to read except the Koran. His family was not allowed to visit him. ....His lawyers were told he would face execution. (But)Within six months, the U.S. government had dropped all criminal charges against Yee." Yes, just as it has dropped charges against hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners earlier, men labeled by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as "the worst of the worst" but against the overwhelming majority of whom the Bush regime apparently had no case whatever!
The treatment Yee got is typical of those who run afoul of the Bush regime: torture first, trial after...if there is a trial. And since his release, Yee has been denied his free speech right to discuss his ordeal---gagged by the Pentagon. Perhaps most incredible, even if a Guantanamo prisoner should be found innocent, the Pentagon says he might not be released anyway. This echoes Stalin's practice of re-arresting Gulag prisoners after they had done their time. At one point, Stalin had eight million souls behind bars, even exceeding President Bush, currently the world's Incarcerator-In-Chief.
Author Wolf says another danger flag is the creation of paramilitary groups, "aggressive men who have no clear, accountable relationship to the government or the party seeking power..." Mussolini had the blackshirts; Hitler the brownshirts; but whatever their dress, they were thugs. Wolf says that Moycock, N.C.-based Blackwater Worldwide stands ready "to deploy its unaccountable private army (35,000 men) in the U.S.---in the aftermath of natural disasters, and also in cases of 'national emergency.'" With at least a half billion dollars in government contracts, "Blackwater is the world's largest private security force, works closely with Halliburton, and is available for action outside the scrutiny of Congress," Wolf writes. The outfit raked in $73 million for patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And Blackwater subcontractor Red Tactica, recruits former Chilean commandos," men described by one Chilean sociologist that are "valued for their expertise in kidnapping, torturing and killing defenseless civilians," Wolf wrote.
Besides creating such "security" forces, dictators create secret prisons, as Bush has done, ranging from prison ships in the Indian Ocean to dungeons in Poland, where they can hide them from Red Cross scrutiny, as the CIA has done. "We should worry about the men held at Guantanamo because history shows that stripping prisoners of their rights is intoxicating not only to leaders but to functionaries at every level of society," Wolf writes. "Gitmo" is also an interrogation camp, an operation "that is completely and flatly illegal" and outlawed by the Geneva Conventions in 1949, she points out. Stalin also employed torture and in 1937 actually legalized its use in Soviet prisons. When he received his infamous "albums" with the names of those to be executed and imprisoned, next to some names he often wrote: "Beat! Beat! Beat!" And only months after taking power, Hitler "established a network of illegitimate prisons where torture took place" and where guards could murder inmates with "no chance of being punished," Wolf said. And like Stalin, The Decider has signaled his henchmen beatings are now the American Way.
Dictators hold power by instilling fear in their citizens. Since 2000, Wolf writes there has been "a sharp increase in U.S. citizen groups that are being harassed and infiltrated by police and federal agents, often in illegal ways." She pointed to a 2006 ACLU report that California police had infiltrated antiwar protests, political rallies, and other constitutionally protected gatherings and were secretly investigating them, even though the California state constitution forbids this. And prior to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, police department detectives infiltrated groups planning peaceful demonstrations. At the Federal level, Bush's apparatchiks are compiling dossiers on law-abiding citizens. The Defense Department's Talon program has created a database about peaceful antiwar and other groups and activists. As Jen Nessel of the Center for Constitutional Rights says, "We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model---you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we're going to hold you."
Bush regime actions' today recall how the Gestapo, NKVD, Stasi(East German secret police) and Red China's Politburo "all requisitioned private data such as medical, banking, and library records," Wolf writes, because access to such private data "breaks down citizens' sense of being able to act freely against those in power." And although the Department of Homeland Security's TIPS scheme to get letter carriers and meter readers, etc., to report suspicious activities was met with derision and never funded, the ACLU noted it was merely absorbed in the Pentagon's "black budget."
Privacy in America today as guaranteed by the Constitution is fast becoming a memory. The New York Times reported the government in 2005 was monitoring your e-mail and telephone talk without legal warrants and the following year the newspaper disclosed U.S. treasury officials, with CIA help, "were reviewing millions of private bank transactions without individual court-ordered warrants or subpoenas," Wolf pointed out.
One method of intimidation is to limit a citizen's right to travel freely. The Bush regime has created "watch"(75,000 names) and "no fly"(45,000 names) lists that restrict individuals' air travel--and those searched and/or stopped from flying can complain all they like because it won't do them any good. Robert Johnson, an American citizen, Wolf reports, described the humiliation factor of being strip searched when he attempted to board an airplane: "I had to take off my pants. I had to take off my sneakers, then I had to take off my socks. I was treated like a criminal." This has now become a commonplace ordeal for thousands of Americans. Even at the height of World War Two, such invasions of personal rights would have been unthinkable.
Going back to Webster's definition of fascism, USA today is the world's runaway leader in "militarism." Forty-three percent of all U.S. tax dollars in 2007 went to feed the war machine, as the Pentagon believes security depends on operating more than 700 military bases in 130 countries overseas in addition to 1,000 at home. Bush has escalated its budget so that USA now spends nearly as much on arms as all the rest of the world combined. Uncle Sam is also the No. 1 private arms peddler to the world. By contrast, Iran, portrayed by the White House as a menace to the Middle East, has an annual military budget that is 1/100th of the Pentagon's outlay.
Perhaps it would be a good exercise for Americans to read how Hitler emphasized nationalism and militarism. As he wrote in "Mein Kampf": "Instead of everlasting struggle the world preaches cowardly pacifism, and everlasting peace...There is only one right in this world and this right is one's own strength." As for "reconciliation, understanding, world peace, the League of Nations, and international solidarity---we destroy these ideas." Hitler called for delivering Germans "from the hopeless confusion of international convictions" and educating them "consciously and systematically to fanatical nationalism." Armed with such views the fascist state thinks nothing of starting an aggressive war based on lies. In 1939, Hitler claimed he was attacked by Poland, igniting World War Two. Bush claimed that Iraq had nuclear and biological weapons to destroy America when, in fact, it was the United States that possessed those very weapons and it was Iraq that had none.
Bush nonetheless started a seemingly endless war that has by some estimates to date killed more than 1 million Iraqis, wounded perhaps 2 million more, forced a like number from their homes, ravished their country and its economy, touched off a civil war, forced 1 million Iraqis into foreign exile, and killed and wounded 35,000 American troops. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the Iraq war "illegal" but Bush, like Hitler, cares nothing for international treaties, even if those the U.S. has signed under our Constitution are the supreme law of the land. He has made a mockery to the anti-nuclear treaty, causing former President Carter to charge his own country has become the leader in nuclear proliferation. What's more, Bush has spent about $50 billion on germ warfare "defense" with no known significant foreign threat to USA.
Americans may think that Webster's view that fascism is often accompanied by racism doesn't fit them. Indeed, USA's strides to eliminate racism based on color in the last century are a societal marvel. But racism against African Americans has largely been replaced with the foolhardy notion that Americans are better than everybody else in the world and have the authority to set right any ruler they believe is in error. This view of their own superiority echoes Hitler's "master race" view of the German people or the Tokyo militarists' view in 1940 that a superior Japan was destined to rule "the eight corners of the world." In this sense, America is very "racist" indeed and the "aggressive nationalism" highlighted by Webster's is apparent in the rhetoric of its public officials and the conduct of its foreign affairs.
Yet another characteristic of the fascist state is its leader's use of arbitrary power. Note how Bush evades the will of Congress by tacking on "signing statements" to laws he doesn't like, thus refusing to enforce them, putting himself above the will of Congress and the American people. Note how his aides refuse to respond to Congressional subpoenas to testify. Yet another example is how the Justice Department's own internal investigators found Bush's appointees filled nonpolitical posts with party hacks and then lied about what they had done. "Civil Service Laws Were Breached in Filling Nonpolitical Jobs" said a New York Times reported July 29th. It should be remembered Hitler followed a like policy when he purged Jews from their government posts. When tyrants rule, merit is ever subservient to loyalty.
Of course, Bush has not flung thousands of Americans into prison to torture and murder them as Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin did, but he has the power to do so, making the latter half of 2008 a time of danger for Americans. Wolf writes, "At a point in both Mussolini's and Hitler's takeovers, citizens witnessed a stunning series of quickly escalating pronunciamentos or faits accomplis. After each leader made his bids for power beyond what the Italian parliament and the German Reichstag allowed him, each abruptly started to claim all kinds of new rights that were extra-parliamentary; the right unilaterally to go to war, to annex territory, to veto existing laws, or to overrule the judiciary," etc.
To repeat the question, "Is America fascist?" the answer is that the machinery is in place for a totalitarian takeover at the direction of a tyrant. While it is true that the U.S. is not a one-party state (some will dispute this owing to the many similarities of the two major parties) like fascist Italy and Germany, and it does have free elections, for the first time in its history in 2000 and 2004 an ominous cloud of doubt has hung over the authenticity of the popular vote and a vast segment of the voting public today does not trust the election machinery to record their vote as they intend. There are no mass arrests and executions in the thousands and millions that typified the regimes of Hitler and Stalin (Stalin had 681,000 people executed in 1937-8 "Great Terror" alone); free speech still exists (under Stalin, a person could be imprisoned for making a Stalin joke); and the government has not put its leaden hand on business as Putin has done although crony capitalism in the selection of defense contractors is rampant. These vital distinctions set America apart from the totalitarian society. Yet, with each passing day in its "War on Terror" the Bush regime tightens its hold on the machinery to establish totalitarian rule here.
Americans need to keep in mind that worse than anything President Bush has inflicted upon its own citizenry is what its wars of aggression have inflicted on innocent humanity abroad. A million dead Iraqis can't give a damn by what terminology you describe the United States. If the American people allow their government to make criminal wars to deprive innocent foreigners of their lives and liberties they do not deserve to enjoy either at home.
Professor Don Foster - who helped convict Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and unveiled Joe Klein as the author of the novel Primary Colors - said that the evidence pointed to someone with high-ranking military and intelligence connections." He got that right. Where is Bush's War on Domestic Terrorism, Since the Targets Included the Highest Ranking Dem Senators, Just Before the Vote on the Patriot Act? That's a Little Too Much of a Coinky-Dink. 8/4
Migod, you're right; this guy really is as stupid as advertised...and he hides behind the most foolish pedantry to compensate for it. It's a sicko TO prod...kinda like a horse TO ride or a buffoon TO mess with...do you see, genius? I doubt this poor twit really wants to be correcting anyone on anything.
Talk about toooo easy...why did you think the one word I chose to misspell was pretentious? That should have been enough of a clue for you, but I knew it wouldn't be. They told me that you're so desperate for a point, any point you can score on that you'd have to jump in and "correct" me...even though it would prove that you are precisely the PRETENTIOUS, little pedant they say you are. I would have loved to have chosen pedant but there was no way to misspell that convincingly.
Oh, as for my identity...I've been to your blog exactly ONE time...after seeing it, I see why you're over here all the time.
I know about your beatdown and cowardly retreat because I happen to know several members of the merry band who razed your site ...and who did the same to so many others. We exchange emails...duh. Occasionally, I join them. Oh...they laugh at you behind your back as much as they do to your face.
Reicho lunatic who targeted top liberals for anthrax poisoning was "forensically diagnosed by several top psychiatrists as a sociopathic, homicidal killer."
Sounds like his enablers: Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly, Fox News, and the entire right wing blogosphere.
"It's a sicko TO prod...kinda like a horse TO ride or a buffoon TO mess with...do you see, genius?"
You didn't say to "prod." You said "to keep prodding":
"Hey, I keep telling you guys this John is a sicko to keep prodding...he provides some funny material."
Again, "John is a sicko *so* keep prodding" is correct, justifying the reasoning why, i.e. because he's funny (although your mask of mirth seems to have cracked and crumbled away to reveal your true angry--and ugly--visage, blivious).
Again, I know you don't have the class to apologize and stand corrected after I take the time to draw you a picture and diagram your erroneous thinking processes, but it's enough that you made yet another arrogant assertion of "fact" that flies in the face of the facts (in this case, of the rules of grammar), and then, when irrefutably corrected, insist you're still right (with the obligatory ad hominems thrown in to magically make it so), while--like the shameless scoundrel that you are-- quickly changing the tense of the original word you used in the process (acknowledging your error but hoping no one would notice).
You're pathetic, blivious.
"I doubt this poor twit really wants to be correcting anyone on anything."
Wrong again. This poor twit is locked and loaded, asshole. Your ass is grass.
"Talk about toooo easy...why did you think the one word I chose to misspell was pretentious?"
hahahahahahahahahahaha
Good one, blivious. Right. You did it on "purpose."
"That should have been enough of a clue for you, but I knew it wouldn't be."
Doesn't sound like it here, LIAR:
"John, you silly, pretensious, little pedant...both spellings are correct, though the t is used more often."
Again, you don't have the class to admit you made an error. Instead, you deny and spew insults until your guilt becomes irrefutably plain as day. Cornered, instead of behaving like a man and finally doing the honorable thing to save whatever credibility you have left, like the sleazy little liberal snake that you are, you compulsively and clumsily tamper with the evidence in order to make what's left match your boneheaded words (however faintly) and hope no one will notice, this time snatching the "DING" away from "prod" and hiding it behind your back (very much like Sandy Berger stuffing files down his pants so the 9/11 commission wouldn't see them), still denying error and spewing insults without missing a beat as beads of sweat roll off your forehead.
Unable to even try to change "pretensious" back to "pretentious," after once again denying the first correction with a reckless round of insults, cornered with irrefutable proof on the second correction, you simper: "Well, I was obviously being ironic."
You're a villain, blivious, you and all your little cohorts. And the party's over.
So, Ava, top psychiatrists would forensically diagnose Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly, Fox News, and the entire right wing blogosphere as "sociopathic, homicidal killers?"
Right. People who wouldn't even kill a zygote.
Speaking of top psychiatrists, I suggest you see one (but only the structuralist, Jungian kind, not post-modern Behaviorists; they'll only make you worse).
blivious assured (for what his assurances are worth):
"Oh, as for my identity...I've been to your blog exactly ONE time..."
Incredible. You all sound the same. You're like the Borg Collective from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
I think you're lying, blivins. This is almost a verbatim quotation of what I said to a persuistent troll there some time ago, "houstonmod, methinks:
"You're a coward who has been so badly beaten that your ego is involved and now you're obsessed with 'redeeming' your bleeding self image."
I may possibly have used that very charge here a while ago. 'Fess up, thief. Those aren't your words. They're mine.
Oh, I'm sure that's one of your "verbatim quotes," you pathetic horse's ass. You've proven you can't even form a sentence, let alone express a concept like that one.
In fact, you can't even read a sentence. So, I'll take the opportunity to make a fool of you again...to wit: That's a horse to keep riding...he's a jackass to keep messing with...he's a fool to keep putting the boots to...duh.
You really need to get your special ed nanny to take you over the prepositions again.
Now, as the man said, when you're playing mind games, make sure your opponent has one. You don't, and explaining the obvious to a fool -- repeatedly -- is very tiresome.
So, this little game is over, sicko...take your ego -- and your grammar -- problems somewhere else. The tangle in your particular fouled up synapses require special help.
We now know -- we knew even before news of Ivins' suicide last night, and know especially in light of it -- that the anthrax attacks didn't come from Iraq or any foreign government at all. It came from our own Government's scientist, from the top Army bioweapons research laboratory. More significantly, the false reports linking anthrax to Iraq also came from the U.S. Government -- from people with some type of significant links to the same facility responsible for the attacks themselves. In short, the suicide of the alleged anthrax attacker, after all these years, raises more questions about potential Bush Administration involvement in the attacks than it puts to bed. 8/4
hahahahaha...that's some hilarious shit, LB. Maybe if you esplane it to him disaway:
John is a moron to keep messing with...because it's a certainty that he will make a fool of himself in response.
We tried to tell you...wrangling with these morons means having to tell them what you REALLY said a dozen times, and then they still don't get it. If you trap them in something, they're too stupid to know it. And, after while you realize, jeebus, I don't want a fool this stupid to agree with me anyway. Talk about impregnable stupidity...it's their only defense, but it's a doozy.
But if you think this guy is dim, you should read his friend FJ. There was an exchange between him and one of the guys which was such a classic of unintentional wingbat hilarity that we cut it and sent it around...probably making the rounds on the internet right now.
Don't waste your time with them.
"Oh, I'm sure that's one of your 'verbatim quotes,' you pathetic horse's ass."
Well. Sounds like I rattled your cage, blivious. No more "hahahas" or "hey, buddys" from you. Good. I like it much better this way. Your last tone was annoyingly hoity-toity and condescending. Now you know you're in a serious fight with someone whose got your number. And you're going to lose, Larry.
No, I didn't say it was verbatim. I said it was "almost" verbatim. There's a difference, like there's a difference between "prod" and "prodding" and "to" and "so" and, of course, "pretentious" and "pretensious" (sic).
But the plagiarism is certain, and I've already pointed out your own--but typically lefty--need to plagiarize material (theft being substituted for your utter lack of originality and creativity).
Why, even your nervous, blurted insolence was two-parts me and one-part cliche.
A few postings up, I said, loud and clear:
"LARRY BLIVINS IS A POMPOUS ASS AND A FOOL."
Then, later, after outing your bungling attempt to switch the deck after having irrefutably corrected you, I rightly identified:
"You're pathetic, blivious."
In return, you came up with:
"...pathetic horse's ass."
The "horse" part was floating in your head because you were already visualizing me as a "horse to keep riding," as you subliminally let slip.
Glad I could be of service, "larry."
But as I said before--FIRST--the neurotic liberal keeps arguing after losing the argument because his neurotic ego is invested and he becomes obsessed with "winning"--"by any means necessary"--and turns the argument into a personal, puerile pissing contest.
Give it up, blivious. Everyone can see that mine's bigger and that yours fails to rise to the occasion.
As I said-- FIRST-- your neurotic ego is invested in this and now you're obsessed with "winning" at any cost-- even at the cost of losing all four of your limbs, like Monty Python's Black Knight (who effectively lost--BIG TIME--but was in denial of that).
Like the limbless Black Knight threatening to bite Arthur on the leg, all you can do is neurotically nitpick and INSIST that "to" is better than "so."
All you had to say, off the bat, was that it was a typo, larry. I would've been cool with that.
Instead, you bit the bait and allowed me to manipulate you into revealing yourself as the insecure neurotic that you are who goes ballistic over one measley letter in the alphabet, meanwhile learning by rote what could not be spelled.
You're pathetic, blivious.
And a pompous ass.
"Now, as the man said, when you're playing mind games, make sure your opponent has one."
Said the loser of the game.
And here's why you lost: I don't play "games," mind or otherwise. That's what leftists try to do in lieu of honesty and straight talk.
That you admitted that that's what you try to do to "win" politically/personally (because politics is personal to the lefty) only proves--yet again--what an immoral, unprincipled, double-talking sleaze you are.
Not only that, but you're a stupid one, too, because you admitted it.
"You don't, and explaining the obvious to a fool..."
I called you a "fool" first. Like, ten times, fool.
Sounds like your mighty arsenal of words and "mind games" is nearing depletion.
That's what happens when you blunder into a fight with a stronger and much-better equipped opponent, blivious.
"-- repeatedly -- is very tiresome."
lol Running out of bullets, eh, blivious?
"So, this little game is over, sicko..."
lol
In other words: "I DON'T WANT TO PLAY GAMES WITH YOU ANYMORE! MOMMY! WAAAAAHHH!!"
"take your ego -- and your grammar -- problems somewhere else."
Make me.
This ain't your blog. It's Mr. Sayet's. I suggest you gtfo.
"The tangle in your particular fouled up synapses require special help."
You really gotta drop that copycatting jejune "I-Know-You-Are-But-What-Am-I?" strategem (and tell your Democratic leaders to do so, as well, while you're at it).
I know it's not going to be easy, because the psychological defense mechanism of projection is pretty much on mindless autopilot with you neurotics.
You're the "sicko," Larry, I said FIRST:
"I've been observing that malicious troll for some time. It's became mentally ill from the Kos Kool Aid it's been guzzling in deep draughts."
And here:
"Good for Adkisson. Acknowledging that you have a mental illness is an important first step (hint-hint)."
And here:
"A predictable reaction.
More proof (superfluous proof, at this point) of the mental illness and astonishing depth of corrupt depravity of the lefty mind.
The subjects obliviously validate the identification and prognoses of their morbid condition by compulsively resorting to the programmed, ritualistic behavior and verbage in the repetetive--and thus predictable--manner which symptomized and flagged that very condition in the first place.
Despite the publicising of the earlier discrediting, neutering, and then serial ineffectiveness of the programmed tactic of "shouting down" the reasoning opposition by their posting of lengthy propaganda sheets handed to them by Kool Aid mixers higher up the food chain in between ad hominems and "hahaha" ridicule (all part of the playbook), when cornered and challenged to think outside of the box, they...
...try to "shout down" the reasoning opposition by their posting of the same lengthy propaganda sheets handed to them by Kool Aid mixers higher up the food chain in between ad hominems and "hahaha" ridicule, thinking that--this time, perhaps magically--a desired result will be achieved.
All of that meets predicted expectations and further confirms the degree of indoctrination that the subjects have been exposed to: Very High.
It also meets Freud's definition of insanity."
And, in a lengthy diagnosis, here:
"You have to accept responsibility for what's happened to you. You are not a 'victim.' Your condition is your own fault. To realize that, however, is actually empowering, for just as your condition is the result of your own choices--however poorly thought through--you likewise have the same power to change, but you have to choose to do so.
Unfortunately, recognition is a prequisite, and the malicious, viral programming which has infected your mind--a Trojan--has sophisticated failsafes which makes removal difficult.
Among them are the virus' defense mechanisms of denial and projection, the latter ensuring the survival of the former by automatically ejecting recognitions in a data dump onto an unwitting second party.
That automation is facilitated by the initializing stealth deletion of self-awareness, one of the first things to go when the hostile matrix is downloaded in order for the overwrite to proceeed without the obstruction of realization.
Marxism is an insidious, tentacled mindworm that becomes so intertwined with the lattice of consciousness and is so destructive to reasoning faculties that the success rate for deprogramming is, I'm afraid, not promising.
Deprograming is further complicated by the inverted language that the viral application uses, causing it to respond to commands and prompts in the opposite way intended.
And so, when the abortion of malicious, streaming material is attempted so as to protect the harddrive, the troubleshooter unwittingly commands: 'Save To C Drive.'
Inverting the integral values of a once-universal system is the most diabolical defense mechanism of all for the virus, making it unresponsive and practically tamper-proof, allowing the transmogrifying of the host to continue unabated because rational counsel sounds like gibberrish.
('Huh?' Exactly.)
...
From what I've observed, you're in an advanced stage of the infection and pretty much a lost cause.
You're now nothing but a mindless, snarling animal, an attack dog of the masters who designed the program and slipped it to you mixed in some Kool Aid concoction to transform you into a sniveling orc for their Mordorous vision.
But again, that you're a hateful, wretched creature-- but a useful idiot for your masters-- is no one's fault but your own.
And when people reach out their hand to help you, you bite it.
Fine. Be that way. Just remember: If you want to be a festering hemmorhoid on the anus of society, that's your choice. Don't blame others because your life smells like shit, and don't presume to tell others who live above the waist that their's does, too.
Fool."
After all that, blivious is oblivious to his reenforcing of the profile by defensively and belatedly blurting out that I'm the one with mental problems and delusively thinking that he's being offensive.
"Anonymous" (like a mask-wearing terrorist) said:
"We now know...that the anthrax attacks didn't come from Iraq or any foreign government at all. It came from our own Government's scientist, from the top Army bioweapons research laboratory... In short, the suicide of the alleged anthrax attacker, after all these years, raises more questions about potential Bush Administration involvement in the attacks than it puts to bed."
Right. And 9/11 was an inside job.
You're a paranoid crackpot, anonymous.
simian hooted:
"hahahahaha..."
That's enough for monkeyboy. The rest is just him hitting the ground with a stick, pursing out his lips, and shaking his head about, and then throwing his feces.
P.S.
"One Week, 9-Point Lead Lost for Obama in Tracking Poll"
by Associated Press
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Have a nice day.
Rising prices beat down consumer spending in June
Aug 4, 10:10 AM
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
WASHINGTON (AP) - Consumer spending, after adjusting for inflation, fell in June as shoppers were hit with the biggest increase in prices in nearly three decades.
The Commerce Department reported Monday that consumer spending dipped by 0.2 percent in June, after removing the effects of higher prices, the poorest showing since a similar drop in February. The higher prices reflected a big surge in gasoline costs and helped to drive an inflation gauge tied to consumer spending up by 0.8 percent in June, the biggest increase since a 1 percent rise in February 1981.
The big rise in inflation ate up a part of the billions of dollars in stimulus payments delivered during the month. Personal incomes rose by a tiny 0.1 percent in June following a giant 1.8 percent increase in May.
Stocks declined in early trading as investors fretted about what rising prices would do to consumer spending. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 63.02, or 0.56 percent, to 11,263.30 in early trading.
Consumer spending before removing inflation rose by 0.6 percent in June after a big 0.8 percent increase in May. Much of that spending went to pay higher prices for gasoline and other items, however. Removing inflation, spending edged up by a more modest 0.3 percent in May and fell by 0.2 percent in June.
Economists believe the $168 billion stimulus program will continue to lift the economy in the current quarter. They predict there will be a significant slowdown in the final three months of this year and early next year, though.
Some analysts believe GDP will shrink in those two quarters, giving the country back-to-back GDP declines, the traditional definition of a recession.
The spending and incomes report showed that prices shot up by 0.8 percent. Excluding food and energy, the increase was 0.3 percent, up from a 0.2 percent rise in May and the biggest one-month gain since a similar 0.3 percent rise last September.
Housing Lenders Fear Bigger Wave of Loan Defaults
By VIKAS BAJAJ
Published: August 4, 2008
nytimes
The first wave of Americans to default on their home mortgages appears to be cresting, BUT A SECOND, FAR LARGER ONE is quickly building.
Homeowners with good credit are falling behind on their payments in growing numbers, even as the problems with mortgages made to people with weak, or subprime, credit are showing their first, tentative signs of leveling off after two years of spiraling defaults.
The percentage of mortgages in arrears in the category of loans one rung above subprime, so-called alternative-A mortgages, quadrupled to 12 percent in April from a year earlier. Delinquencies among prime loans, which account for most of the $12 trillion market, doubled to 2.7 percent in that time.
The mortgage troubles have been exacerbated by an economy that is still struggling. Reports last week showed another drop in home prices, slower-than-expected economic growth and a huge loss at General Motors. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate in July climbed to a four-year high.
While it is difficult to draw precise parallels among various segments of the mortgage market, the arc of the crisis in subprime loans suggests that the problems in the broader market may not peak for another year or two, analysts said.
Defaults are likely to accelerate because many homeowners’ monthly payments are rising rapidly. The higher bills come as home prices continue to decline and banks tighten their lending standards, making it harder for people to refinance loans or sell their homes. Of particular concern are “alt-A” loans, many of which were made to people with good credit scores without proof of their income or assets.
“Subprime was the tip of the iceberg,” said Thomas H. Atteberry, president of First Pacific Advisors, a investment firm in Los Angeles that trades mortgage securities. “Prime will be far bigger in its impact.”
In a conference call with analysts last month, James Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said he expected losses on prime loans at his bank to triple in the coming months and described the outlook for them as “terrible.”
Delinquencies on mortgages tend to peak three to five years after loans are made, said Mark Fleming, the chief economist at First American CoreLogic, a research firm. Not surprisingly, subprime loans from 2005 appear closer to the end of defaults than those made in 2007, for which default rates continue to rise steeply.
“We will hit those points in a few years, and that will help in many ways,” Mr. Fleming said, referring to the loans made later in the housing boom. “We just have to survive through this part of the cycle.”
Data on securities backed by subprime mortgages show that 8.41 percent of loans from 2005 were delinquent by 90 days or more or in foreclosure in June, up from 8.35 percent in May, according to CreditSights, a research firm with offices in New York and London. By contrast, 16.6 percent of 2007 loans were troubled in June, up from 15.8 percent.
Some of that reflects basic math. Over the years, some loans will be paid off as homeowners sell or refinance, and some homes will be foreclosed upon and sold. That reduces the number of loans from those earlier years that could default. Also, since the credit market seized up last year, lenders have become much more conservative and have stopped making most subprime loans and cut back on many other popular mortgages.
The resetting of rates on adjustable mortgages, which was a big fear of many analysts in 2006 and 2007, has become less problematic because the short-term interest rates to which many of those loans are tied have fallen significantly as the Federal Reserve has lowered rates. The recent federal tax rebates and efforts to modify more loans have also helped somewhat, analysts say.
What will sting borrowers more than rising interest rates, analysts say, is having to pay interest and principal every month after spending several years paying only interest or sometimes even less than that. Such loan terms were popular during the boom with alt-A and prime borrowers and appeared appealing while home prices were rising and interest rates were low.
But now, some borrowers could see their payments jump 50 percent or more, and they may not be able to sell their properties for as much as they owe.
Well, I see poor, hagridden John appears even more desperate than before to justify himself. I read a couple lines and checked the length...this is one sick puppy...I doubt if even Blivins will bother with him much more, although he does seem to be driving him into a total breakdown...hahaha...how much time must the poor addled fool have spent on that? And nobody to appreciate his efforts...poor guy.
Oh, if someone can get through it, tell me if the simp still can't see how TO can be used in a sentence like that...hahahahhahahaha...that one is pricelss and needs to be collected from the thread.
Across America, economic woes are mounting
by McClatchey News Service
Sunday, August 3, 2008
As politicians and policymakers in Washington struggle to control the damage from the housing crisis, the banks' credit crunch, $4 a gallon gasoline, rising food prices and mounting unemployment, McClatchy newspapers from North Carolina to California reported Sunday that the bad economic news is beginning to bite in their areas.
"I feel like I'm struggling," Sarah Joyal, a nurse who makes $100,000 a year, told the Bee. Farther south in California's Central Valley, the Modesto Bee reported that foreclosures are leaving more people there living in limbo.
In America's heartland, rising fuel costs are putting trucking firms in Kansas out of business, reports the Wichita Eagle, and more people are chasing fewer jobs at employment centers around Kansas City, according to The Kansas City Star.
In the Southeast, the Raleigh News & Observer reports that medical bills are starting to pinch the elderly. Jake Smith, a retired Durham, N.C. truck driver, sold his paid-off home of 33 years recently to settle about $15,000 in medical debt that wasn't covered by Medicare, the N&O reports. In Georgia, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports that the economic turbulence is reflected in Brother Rosenberg's downtown candy store. People who'd been buying homemade fudge by the pound are now buying only a piece or two, Rosenberg told the paper.
To read more about how the economy looks to people in places other than Wall Street and Washington, go to:
As economic news worsens, Sacramento residents tighten belts
Foreclosures leave Californians living in limbo
Fuel costs put Kansas companies out of business
Jobless rate beginning to worry the nation's heartland
Medical bills pinch elderly in North Carolina
Economic woes hitting home in Georgia
Vets Increasingly Catch on to Who Really Supports Them
Not All Veterans Salute McCain
Sunday 03 August 2008
Dan Moffett, Palm Beach Post
Many veterans are not pleased with John McCain's voting record on veteran's issues. (Photo: AP)
The growing ranks of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will have a lot to say about who becomes president. And what they are saying isn't what you might expect.
In theory, John McCain, with his long record of service as a Navy pilot and prisoner of war story from Vietnam, should have the market cornered on the military vote.
Instead, he has drawn opposition from many veterans because of his voting record in the Senate. Sen. McCain has voted against bills that would have improved veterans' benefits, particularly health care, or measures to ease the strain on active-duty troops and their families.
The disapproval among vets for Sen. McCain has fed surprising support for Barack Obama, who has voted for many of the veterans' initiatives in the Senate that his opponent rejected.
One of the last things the McCain campaign expected was to wind up in the cross hairs of angry veterans and having to fight off repeated attacks. But, then, that was also one of the last things the decorated veteran John Kerry expected in 2004.
The Internet has given rise to a new generation of veterans groups that line up from one end of the political spectrum to the other - Veterans for Peace at the left end and the Swift Boat Vets on the right.
Among the many misconceptions about running for president is that a military combat record makes a candidate more electable.
In fact, the converse is true, at least since the Vietnam War changed Americans' perspectives about service in the armed forces.
None of the three presidents who have won two terms since the '70s has done it on the strength of his military credentials.
As an Army officer during World War II, Ronald Reagan made government movies for the war effort while stationed in Culver City, Cal. Bill Clinton has no military record, and lingering questions about why he has none. George W. Bush made sure the skies were safe over Houston when he served on the homefront with the Texas Air National Guard during the height of Vietnam.
Presidential candidates with truly heroic service in World War II have been big losers in November: George McGovern was a decorated B-24 bomber pilot who flew dozens of missions over Africa and Europe; Bob Dole nearly died from wounds suffered in Italy, and lost the use of his right arm; George H.W. Bush earned the Distinguished Flying Cross after getting shot down during one of many bombing missions in the Pacific.
When it comes to winning support from veterans, Sen. McCain's voting record on their issues is an imposing obstacle.
The Disabled Veterans of America gives him a 20 percent rating, compared with an 80 percent rating for Sen. Obama. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America gives Sen. McCain a D and Sen. Obama a B+. The Vietnam Veterans of America say Sen. McCain has voted against them on 15 issues.
One of the most vocal and fastest-growing veterans groups to oppose the McCain campaign is VoteVets.org. Formed in 2006, the organization claims a membership of roughly 100,000, with a political action committee devoted to electing congressional candidates who oppose the handling of the Iraq war.
Especially galling to VoteVets.org is Sen. McCain's opposition to the new, bipartisan GI Bill that increases education benefits for Iraq and Afghanistan vets. Sen. Obama voted for the bill when it passed 75-22 in May; Sen. McCain was on the campaign trail and did not vote.
The size of the veterans' vote is easier to calculate than its direction. The nation has about 24 million veterans - a population the size of California - with 1.7 million of them in Florida. In 2004, roughly 80 percent of vets turned out to vote, compared with 64 percent of nonveterans. American veterans are 80 percent white non-Hispanic, 11 percent African-American, 6 percent Hispanic and 92 percent male. Their median age is 60, and 60 percent of them live in urban areas.
Veterans are politically and demographically diverse - a long way from a monolithic voting bloc. But Sen. McCain is running the risk of uniting them against him.
»
So predictable, monkeyboy. An automaton, the individual human overwritten--destroyed--by the matrix, now a chimerical beast, one part heckling hyena, one part hissing and spitting snake, and two parts squawking parrot, all embodied in an Orwellian pig.
A repulsive, deformed creature.
Indeed, Marx discovered the wand of Circe.
Despite the publicising of the earlier discrediting, neutering, and then serial ineffectiveness of the programmed tactic of "shouting down" the reasoning opposition by their posting of lengthy propaganda sheets handed to them by Kool Aid mixers higher up the food chain in between ad hominems and "hahaha" ridicule (all part of the playbook), when cornered and challenged to think outside of the box, they...
...try to "shout down" the reasoning opposition by their posting of the same lengthy propaganda sheets handed to them by Kool Aid mixers higher up the food chain in between ad hominems and "hahaha" ridicule, thinking that--this time, perhaps magically--a desired result will be achieved.
All of that meets predicted expectations and further confirms the degree of indoctrination that the subjects have been exposed to: Very High.
It also meets Freud's definition of insanity."
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