McCain vs. The Video Professor

by twit

it had to happen…

Diplomacy, what is it good for?

by twit

According to President Bush, absolutely nothing. From CNN on May 15, 2008:

In his first address to Israel’s parliament Thursday, President Bush reiterated the United States’ “unbreakable” alliance with the Jewish state and denounced calls to negotiate with “terrorists and radicals.”

In a speech before the Knesset, Bush compared calls to talk with unnamed terrorist groups as a “foolish delusion” that was suggested before World War II.

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

We already know that the Bush Administration doesn’t follow this rhetoric when implementing its actual foreign policy. We’ve already seen Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice talk about how “very supportive” the United States is of the government in Lebanon, despite its ties to Hezbollah and the US condemnation of this “terrorist organization.”

The latest development in diplomacy is reported by The Guardian on July 16, 2008:

The US is planning to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years, a remarkable turnaround in policy by president George Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his time in office.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section in Tehran, a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

But who will the Republicans criticize now? CBS News reports on July 9, 2008:

Obama has been criticized by Republicans for being too eager to engage enemies of the U.S. in talks.

anarchy for breakfast

by twit

Via the Raw Story, it looks like there are some plans developing to welcome the Republican National Convention to St. Paul, Minnesota:

Since last summer, an anarchist group calling itself the RNC Welcoming Committee has been advertising its intention to be present at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN this September, even releasing a video showing black-clad figures cheerfully spreading the word.

here’s the video:

but don’t worry, the government is getting ready, too:

CNN’s Ed Lavendera reports that Denver and St. Paul officials have said that the types of weapons being purchased are “top secret.”

Apart from the traditional pepper spray and rubber bullets employed by police for controlling large protests, Denver, Colorado and St. Paul, Minnesota officials may be spending large sums on weapons CNN calls ’science fiction sounding’.

Weapons such as the sonic ray gun, which emits a head-splitting frequency and deafens large groups of people.

postcards from the internets

by twit

Banksy! Perhaps his identity has been revealed? The twit’s not convinced, but this:

Asked by the paper whether Gunningham was Banksy, he replied: “Well, he wasn’t then”.

Gunningham’s father Peter said he did not recognise the person in the photograph, while his mother Pamela maintained she had never even had a son.

does seem like something that a mother of an artist would say…

They are the experts: Just because it’s a stone thrown in a glass house doesn’t mean it’s not true:

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said: “McCain’s crude remark on the indiscriminate killing of the Iranian nation not only testifies to his disturbed state of mind, but also to his warmongering approach to foreign policy.”

The Ron Paul Army: Laugh if you must, but these folks may swing the election away from McCain and the Hillary Avengers:

You go to the voting booth with the Constitution you’ve got…

by lestro

So we all know one of the candidates wasn’t born in the US, right?

It’s true, sometimes the email chains are real! John McCain was not born in the United States.

McCain’s dad was a Navy man (both McCain’s father and grandfather were admirals) and McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father was stationed there in 1936.

This is only interesting because the US Constitution specifically states that the President must be a natural born citizen. It’s one of three requirements. The others, of course, are a minimum age of 35 and having lived in the US for 14 years. McCain easily meets the last two.

However, his citizenship is unquestioned, his natural born status is something that has been discussed, to the point that earlier this year the House and Senate both passed a bill stating his eligibility to run for President, based on the idea that the founders wouldn’t want to deny the Presidency to someone because their parents were in the military. Hard to disagree with.

But according to a new, in-depth look at the issue, it’s not enough:

The analysis, by Prof. Gabriel J. Chin, focused on a 1937 law that has been largely overlooked in the debate over Mr. McCain’s eligibility to be president.

The law conferred citizenship on children of American parents born in the Canal Zone after 1904, and it made John McCain a citizen just before his first birthday. But the law came too late, Professor Chin argued, to make Mr. McCain a natural-born citizen.

Interesting. But surely, the Canal Zone, the 10-mile strip of land that surrounds the Panama Canal, which was controlled by the US from 1903 to 1979 counts as the US, right? I mean, it was US territory at the time, right?

A series of early-20th-century decisions known as the Insular Cases, he wrote, ruled that unincorporated territories acquired by the United States were not part of the nation for constitutional purposes. The Insular Cases did not directly address the Canal Zone. But the zone was generally considered an unincorporated territory before it was returned to Panama in 1999, and some people born in the Canal Zone when it was under American jurisdiction have been deported from the United States or convicted of being here illegally.

Oh come on, surely the people of the time considered it part of the States, right?

McCain 2008: Everything is fine, shut up, you’re the crazy one

by twit

The McCain camp wants us to know that this recession thing, it’s all mental:

Former Sen. Phil Gramm, a top economic adviser to presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, referred to the economic slowdown as “a mental recession” and called the United States “a nation of whiners.”

The comments, in an interview with The Washington Times, could hurt the campaign’s efforts to convince working-class Americans that McCain feels their pain.

The comments, in an interview with The Washington Times, could hurt the campaign’s efforts to convince Americans from all backgrounds that McCain is not a crazy old man.

The Times quoted [Gramm] as saying: “You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession. … We have sort of become a nation of whiners. …

“You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline. … We’ve never been more dominant; we’ve never had more natural advantages than we have today.”

T. Boone Pickens has a plan. Or is he just an old windbag?

by lestro

There’s a new commercial running all across the country in support of a new energy plan put forth by an 80-year-old oil billionaire from Oklahoma.

And here’s the weird thing: It appears to be a really good, progressive plan based bridging the gap to renewable, green power. He calls America the “Saudi Arabia of wind”:

Studies from around the world show that the Great Plains states are home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world — by far.

The Department of Energy reports that 20% of America’s electricity can come from wind. North Dakota alone has the potential to provide power for more than a quarter of the country….

Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns.

That’s a lot of money, but it’s a one-time cost. And compared to the $700 billion we spend on foreign oil every year, it’s a bargain.

Also, being a good American capitalist, he pitches it as the economic boom it can be in both technology and in the small towns in flyover country (please note his financial stake in this plan):

Sweetwater was typical of many small towns in middle-America. With a shortage of good jobs, the youth of Sweetwater were leaving in search of greater opportunities. And the town’s population dropped from 12,000 to under 10,000.

When a large wind power facility was built outside of town, Sweetwater experienced a revival. New economic opportunity brought the town back to life and the population has grown back up to 12,000.

Does Johnny Mac even know what job he is applying for?

by lestro

There is a particularly interesting McCain quote in a recent article about the proposal by former Secretaries of State Jim Baker and Warren Christopher to make changes to the 1973 War Powers Act:

In a Republican presidential debate last October, Senator John McCain, the likely Republican presidential candidate, said he would take military action without going to Congress first, “if the situation is that it requires immediate action to ensure the security of the United States of America.”

“That’s what you take your oath to do when you’re inaugurated as president,” Mr. McCain said.

Actually, no, Johnny. The President does not take an oath to protect the United States, but to protect the Constitution.

Hillary For Worldwide Emperor

by twit

Some of Hillary’s most avid supporters are under the impression that she has been offered the Veep slot on Obama’s ticket. So they have created a site, that allows comments without moderation, with the following inspirational message:

Hillary, don’t take a VP slot. Stay in the Senate (or retire or go worldwide).

We won’t let you sacrifice your own future to prop up Obama.

No Remington Steele presidency!

Go worldwide? Is it time for the Emperor of the World election already?

Click here to sign the petition, and don’t forget to leave a comment! Certainly we can all agree that we do not, under any circumstances, want Hillary anywhere near a ticket led by Obama…

Since so many of us actually want Obama to win.

Goodbye Blue Sky (or: The Democrats Eat Their Young)

by lestro

Just before Pink fully bricks himself in behind his wall at the end of the first act of Pink Floyd’s epic of isolation “The Wall,” the band kicks into the hauntingly beautiful “Goodbye Blue Sky,” which contains the following passage:

Did you see the frightened ones
Did you hear the falling bombs
The flames are all long gone
But the pain lingers on

It’s a song about the mental scarring left over from Pink’s father’s death in the war and it is another mental brick that Pink uses to complete his Wall after he starts to go mad.

Unfortunately, it could also be used to describe the current situation in the Democratic Party as the psychological and financial wounds of the relatively bitter primary campaign continue to haunt the party in a year that should be a grand triumph and victory over the opposition, which has systematically run just about every aspect of our government into the ground, while shitting on our ideals and principles as a nation.

But instead of being able to capitalize fully on the obvious national desire for change, the Democrats are doing everything they can to shoot themselves in the foot again. The flames from the campaign battle may be long gone, but the pain certainly lingers on.

Old habits die hard, I suppose

by lestro

So the McCain people continue to freak out over Gen. Wesley Clark’s continued refusal to back down from his statements about McCain’s war experience as a proof he can lead:

Despite criticism from Republicans, Clark declined to back down in an interview Tuesday morning with ABC. “The experience that he had as a fighter pilot isn’t the same as having been at the highest levels of the military and having to make … life or death decisions about national, strategic issues,” he said.

Asked whether he felt he owed McCain an apology, Clark responded, “I’m very sorry that this has distracted from the message of patriotism that Sen. Obama wants to put out.” [...]

“I think that you can always cite a candidate’s service in the armed forces as a testimony to his character and his courage. But I don’t think early service justifies moving away from looking at a candidate’s judgment,” he replied.

McCain wants blood, of course:

“I think the time has come for Sen. Obama to not just repudiate Gen. Clark, but to cut him loose,” McCain said en route to Colombia.

One ally of the Republican presidential contender accused Obama of “winking and nodding” when he should be condemning Clark and his comments. “This is now about Obama, not Wesley Clark,” added Orson Swindle on a conference call with reporters organized by the McCain’s campaign.

Swindle, a retired colonel and - like McCain - prisoner of war in Vietnam, added that Obama should tell his surrogates to “knock this crap off.”

It should be pointed out though that Wesley Clark was a Clinton supporter who only became an Obama surrogate after she dropped out and I am not even sure if he has an official role at all in the campaign.

It should also be pointed out that Obama has been extremely complimentary about John McCain’s service in Vietnam.

I also can’t think of any other incidents in which Obama surrogates have taken a shot at Johnny Mac’s military service, which actually isn’t relevant anymore as the world and “war” are completely different than when Mac was fighting “the gooks” that he will always hate (his words, from 2000), despite our normalized relations and the passage of more than 35 years since the Vietnam war.

I so want this to be true

by lestro

I love the idea of a younger John McCain yanking some dude out of his chair. It would almost give me reason to like the guy, assuming the cause of the outburst was justified…

One of John McCain’s Republican colleagues says he saw the presumed GOP presidential nominee roughly grab an associate of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and lift him out of his chair during a diplomatic mission to the Central American nation in 1987 [...]

“McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerrilla group here at this end of the table and I don’t know what attracted my attention,” [Thad] Cochran (R-Miss.) said in an interview with the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss.

“But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever …”

Man, I’d love to know what that guy said to set off McCain, a guy with a temper that reportedly gets the better of him. This “Angry Johnny” schtick is nothing new, because back when he was running against Bush in 2000, Mac’s temper was also an issue, so much that the Washington Post and The Arizona Republic felt it necessary to bring up.

In a front page article and separate editorial Sunday, The Arizona Republic said it wanted the nation to know about the “volcanic” temper McCain has unleashed on several top state officials.

Introducing our national nightmare

by twit

Via Maureen Dowd, writing for the New York Times on June 29, 2008:

Afterward, Carmella got her idol to autograph her sign, telling the smiling Hillary, “You’re going to be the next president.”

She told The Times that she and her friends were all voting for John McCain and that Hillary was just doing what she had to do.

“But I have a gut feeling,” she said with macabre faith, “that something’s going to happen so that she becomes the nominee.”

[emphasis added]

Somebody PLEASE get the Secret Service and the FBI on this… it is her certainty that really seems to qualify her as the kind of psychopath to keep an eye on.

monkeys in the middle

by twit

When the twit looks at how monkey imagery is tossed around in a rollicking sea of interpretation and meaning, the poor monkey seems very much like a kid at the center of a hotly-contested custody battle.

Monkeys haven’t done anything to anybody. Hollywood confirms that Apes will be a problem for humans, but monkeys are alright. Nevertheless, a monkey can be as offensive as a noose, depending on the context.

Monkey shirts, Monkey dolls, and now we have a Monkey God, hallelujah.

From the Times of India on June 24, 2008:

The idol is being presented to Obama as he is reported to be a Lord Hanuman devotee and carries with him a locket of the monkey god along with other good luck charms.

The twit very much wants one of these Obama charm bracelets…

Let he who is without bullshit cast the first stone

by lestro

Apparently, James Dobson, the multi-millionaire president of one of the largest fundamentalist mega-church televangelical empires in the country is going to go after both Barack Obama’s views on Christianity and the Constitution during his daily Focus on the Family address tomorrow and he is apparently so proud of it he leaked it to the Associated Press:

As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement’s biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a “fruitcake interpretation” of the Constitution [...]

“Folks haven’t been reading their Bibles,” Obama said.

Dobson and [senior VP of FOF, Tom] Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.

“… He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

What a fucking tool. According to the story, here’s why:

“Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?” Obama said. “Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?” referring to the civil rights leader.

So Dobson, a war supporter who ignores “Thou shalt not kill” when it behooves him to do so (and does the exact kind of bible cherry-picking bullshit (Leviticus, anyone?) one would normally associate with “deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview”) has the balls to talk about dragging biblical understanding through the gutter?

John McCain craps on Iowa flood victims

by twit

The Governor of Iowa says, hey, we’re in the middle of a disaster here, could you please cancel your campaign appearance because we just don’t have the resources to host you at this time.

McCain says, fuck you, we’re coming whether you like it or not, and since we’re providing “most” of our own security you better get your ass in gear and get your local law enforcement on over here to provide the rest.

From the Associated Press on June 20, 2008:

An aide to Gov. Chet Culver said Thursday that Republican presidential candidate John McCain ignored the governor’s request to cancel a campaign visit amid a massive flood recovery effort in the state.

… Patrick Dillon, Culver’s chief of staff, said the governor was concerned that McCain’s trip would divert local law enforcement from the flood recovery effort to provide security for McCain.

John McCain craps his pants

by twit

the twit can’t come up with any other explanation for the particular way John McCain busts out these particular smiles. For example, click here to see a video via Raw Story - at about 00:15, McCain breaks into this truly relieved yet very very proud grin, just like one might expect a baby would after taking a really big dump.

Another example is right at the beginning of this video:

that’s a grin that says “I’m a Big Boy!”

and now you too can enjoy the image of McCain crapping his pants every time he whips that smile out.

postcards from the internets

by twit

I heart Joan Rivers because she says “Yes, I swore, and I’m so fucking sorry“

The trouble with sockmonkeys

by twit

is that they are usually made to look like socks.

For example, via sockmonkeyfun.com:

these are the kind of sockmonkeys one might find if one googled such a thing.

McCain vs. The Internet

by twit

It was fun while it lasted, although the party is now officially over. Last night, Wonkette noticed that the website selling McCain’s campaign gear allowed people to write reviews of the products. The twit then endured laughter so painful she could hardly work her computer, but she did manage to preserve some highlights for posterity.

For example, there are pins for sale:

eom	June 11, 2008
Reviewer: George Orwell from Washington, DC United States

Irony is dead.

To my sisters planning to vote for McCain

by twit

I realize it hurts that Hillary didn’t get the nomination, especially after all of the early media attention that said she was the inevitable candidate. It was a historical moment on its own, providing clear evidence of the cultural shift that finally allowed a woman to become known as the most credible candidate for the  Democratic ticket.

I realize that she was going to vindicate every woman, create a victory for every female held back and left behind by this sexist culture of ours. She called much-needed attention to the inequalities faced by women in America and the unfulfilled promises of liberty and justice for all.

Now the internet is ablaze with former Hillary supporters promising to either vote for McCain, to not vote at all or to write in Hillary on election day. As a woman, from my heart to yours, I ask you to remember why you supported Hillary in the first place. You care about the plight of women, you are sick and tired of being treated like a second-class citizen, you want change to come and you want it now.

I ask you to consider how staying home on election day, writing Hillary in or voting for McCain abandons that clarion call.

Will you work further destruction on your sisters and daughters in order to protest Hillary’s loss of the nomination? Will you work to secure a darker future for all women, now that your first choice is no longer available?

The cost of a ticket to history

by the squid

What do the Presidential Election, Belmont Stakes and the nightly news have in common?

Hype.

The horse racing scene gets but a few days a year where it is fashionable to be at the stables and looking over betting sheets, when novice betters get to try their hand at a sport that normally only consumes the thoughts and dollars of a select few.

If you have ever gone the a race track on “non-event” days, you know what I mean. The environment is seedy, stale and depressing.

However, during these few times when it is acceptable to get on your Sunday best for a Saturday event that mixes the rich with the poor, all have the expectation of witnessing history. This year, the media, sports-minded sportsmen, trainers and laymen were all assured a blowout.

um, i believe the answer is ’shirley chisholm’

 by lestro

and that ain’t her. sorry ted.

i see where you’re going though…

Gracious, she is not

by lestro

Even in defeat it is all about Hillary.

At a time when Democrats around the country should be celebrating and rallying around their now-official candidate, Hillary managed to suck all of the air out of the room and all the attention and headlines away from Obama with her non-concession speech Tuesday, in which she congratulated her opponent for “all they’ve accomplished” but never actually conceding defeat or officially pulling out of the race.

For the past two days, Hillary has had to have the spotlight on her, stealing all media attention with her “what does Hillary want” bit.

What does Hillary want? Attention. It’s that classic Clinton narcissism coming through in overt ways.

Word is now that she will continue to string this out for another few days before officially endorsing the party’s nominee on Saturday.

Her decision came after Democrats urged her Wednesday to leave the race and allow the party to coalesce around Mr. Obama…

Her decision came after a day of conversations with supporters on Capitol Hill about her future now that Mr. Obama had clinched the nomination.

Gotta love that, she has to be begged to drop out of a race that’s literally over.

We’re still talking about this, of course, because her speech Tuesday night was despicable and her refusal to express support for her opponent while continuing to try and campaign was another fun bit of doublespeak, especially this bit:

In the coming days, I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders to determine how to move forward with the best interests of our party and our country guiding my way.

Bullshit. You want to see best interests of the party? here’s what it looks like:

When the weak act strong…

by the squid

Congratulations to Senator Obama on sealing the Democratic nomination, he can finally exhale. However, he now needs to make the most important decision of his entire campaign - selecting a Vice President.

Sun Tzu implored strategists: When you are weak, act strong, when you are strong, act weak.

Senator Obama is now strong, but he has a very, very soft underbelly: experience. This is not said to undermine his historic win, as Obama has just beaten his most difficult rival.

However, it is important to remember what happened when Obama ran for his Senate seat in Illinois.

LOL Journalism

by twit

From the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank on June 4, 2008, a detail from Hillary Clinton’s June 3, 2008 speech:

Terry McCauliffe, the campaign chairman, took the stage and read the full list of Clinton’s victories, from American Samoa to Massachusetts.

Introducing Clinton, he asked: “Are you ready for the next president of the United States?”

This brought laughter from the reporters in the back of the room, but Clinton induced the crowd to boo the “pundits and naysayers” who would have run her from the race.

The Clintons begin work for the GOP

by twit

Thank goodness Bill and Hillary have shot their credibility to shit, but this video is still a tripped out exploration of the kind of damage that the Clinton campaign has managed to accomplish.

Via McClatchy on June 4, 2008:

The New York Times reports from the future

by twit

As far as I can tell, it is still Tuesday around here, and it is hardly Wednesday enough on the east coast to be referring to it as “early morning,” yet the NYT says this:

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton talked early Wednesday morning by telephone. He congratulated her…

which is hilarious on its own, but still…

Yes She Will… congratulate Obama on his victory

by twit

It’s time for a drink! A strong one!

Double-talking jive, get the money motherfucker ’cause I got no more patience

by lestro

Well this is it, eh? June 3, the day of the last primaries. Obama has already won the delegate race for the nomination and we have finally reached the end of the road, right?

Very few people - including the Clinton Campaign - ever saw it going this far, but all things considered, it has been a very good primary season and when it comes down to the come down, Hillary may have actually helped Obama.

Thanks to her, he has already faced many of the bullshit character attacks, half-truths, whisper campaigns and the racism one would expect from a Republican candidate. Yet he has continued to gain popularity.

But while the campaign for the nomination has essentially been over since February, today has to be the end, right? After today she has no reason to keep going and will have to admit she lost, right?

Hell, even Bubba admitted it yesterday.

But, nope, not Hillary. Even after Obama secures the nomination tonight, Hillary will refuse to let go, clinging tenaciously to the possibility that the party Gray Beards will overturn the will of party voters and give her the nomination despite that fact that she is unlikable and unable to draw people to her campaign:

Hillary Rodham Clinton will acknowledge Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign sources told the Associated Press.

After the report, her campaign promptly issued a statement saying, “Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening.”

We Have a Nominee!

by twit

Huzzah!

Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, based on an Associated Press tally of convention delegates