The Thursday ‘BushWhack’ing

Question to Mr. Greenspan; “Credit tsunami”? Really?

• Sen. Obama continues to draw parallels between Sen. McCain and “President” Bush, saying yesterday that McCain would continue “the policies that have put our economy into crisis and, I believe, endangered our national security.” And he’s right… while McCain and his handlers continue in their vain attempt to distance themselves from the current administration, the facts show otherwise…)
• Sen. McCain is invoking Joe the Plumber in Florida in an attempt to ‘woo’ blue-collar voters. (I, personally, don’t understand the McCain campaign’s strategy here. Joe has been a disaster for the campaign and yet they continue to raise this concept of him that has, for all intents and purposes, been disproven. Am I missing something? Or is the McCain camp hoping that voters are truly that gullible?)
• News flash; Karl Rove is STILL a tool…
• CNN’s Jack Cafferty wants to know why so many voters are still un-decided and asks; “So what’s the problem? Maybe if you haven’t figured it out by now you should not be allowed to vote” AMEN Jack! Amen!! I’ve been saying that for years…
• “President” Bush’s push to “loosen mortgage loan qualification standards for first-time homebuyers” helped cause the current financial crisis… and if you’re shocked about that, then you just haven’t been paying attention…
• Allen Raymond, a former gop strategist and operative who is in a federal prison for pleading guilty to charges that he jammed the phone lines of New Hampshire's Democratic Party on Election Day six years ago. Now? Now Raymond has written a book that outlines how he rigged the election and how others could rig an election… (his mother must be so proud)
• And have we mentioned? That FEMA is apparently a very slow learner? Despite having these problems with post-Katrina trailers, a CBS investigation recently found that FEMA-trailers issued to Iowa flood victims has high formaldehyde levels. Ever the agency of stupidity, FEMA’s responded to the CBS investigation by blaming the residents for creating the formaldehyde by “cooking” or “smoking.” (What?? Are you friggin kidding me??? Levels won’t be raised THAT high by cooking or smoking, two things, by the way, that occur everyday in thousands of trailers worldwide. One of the first acts the new president needs to do, be it Obama or McPalin, is to dissolve FEMA and start over… or at the very least get FEMA out from under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella…)

13 Days to Go

With 13 days to go this is what the candidates are doing today…

Sen. Obama is in Indianapolis for a rally this morning and will then fly to Hawaii to be with his grandmother…

Sen. Biden is hitting three stops in North Carolina; Charlotte, Winston-Salem & Raleigh…

Sen. McCain has stops in Ormond Beach and Sarasota Florida…

Gov. Palin has rallies in Troy, Ohio and Beaver, Pennsylvania…

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, Sen. McCain has received an endorsement from a group that NO ONE wants to be endorsed by… al Qa*d*.

Posted earlier this week on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, the terrorist group has some thoughts about the looming election and, in effect, throws their support behind Sen. McCain.

From the post;

“This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier. […] Then, al-Qa*d* will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush. […] If al-Qa*d* carries out a big operation against American interests, this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qa*d*. Al-Qa*d* then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it.”

Not surprisingly the McPalin camp is, shall we say, frenetic about the “endorsement.”

Unfortunately there’s no way to tell how or what al-Qa*d* could do or even what they’re capable of doing at this point… but they’ve tried to influence elections before, witness the Madrid bombings before the Spanish elections and the October 2004 bin Laden tape that the CIA thinks was released in order to boost “President” Bush’s re-election.

Stay tuned…

Is she kidding us with these answers???

An 8 year-old student submitted a question to a journalist about what the vice president's job is, so the reporter relayed the question to Gov. Palin.

Her response; “Palin: That's a great question, Brandon, and a Vice President has a really great job, because not only are they there to support the President agenda, they're like a team member, the team mate to that President. But also, they're in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to they can really get in there with the Senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.”

Actually, the VP is NOT in charge of the Senate, they merely preside over it and cast a vote ONLY if there’s a tie… furthermore…

Oh never mind, she wouldn’t understand anyway…

Am I the only one that, when thinking about Palin being VP, gets a tightness in his chest and a pounding in his head?

And if you want a laugh, check out this response that I saw on MSNBC’s Hardball;

Pat Buchanan: She's talking to second graders, Chris!
Chris Matthews: She's talking like a second-grader, Pat!

Nice…

and true…

Better late than never: My Thoughts on the Powell Endorsement

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Obama for president this past Sunday on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ (read Scott’s post HERE)… and while I know I’m a bit behind on writing about this, understand that it took me a few days to fully understand just how big this endorsement is… for it’s not solely an endorsement of Obama, but also an admonishing of the gop as a whole.

Naturally, the republican wonk (perhaps wanker is more apropos) machine decided to immediately criticize Powell for standing up to for convictions, NOT following the lemmings over the cliff, and putting country, and not party, first.

Sen. McCain could learn a lot from Mr. Powell.

And while I applaud Mr. Powell for doing just that, one has to question if this endorsement does more good for Obama… or if it’s worse for McCain and, in essence, the entire republican party.

I think it’s the latter.

There’s no question the endorsement was a huge boost for the Obama campaign, but keep in mind that there are some Liberals and Independents (a group each side is counting on to propel them to victory) who are pissed at Powell for dragging us into an unjust war.

When thinking about that though, one also has to wonder just how much Powell was lied to by the other members of the Bush(whacked) Administration, specifically Bush, Cheney, Rice, et al.

It’s because of that that I am not one of those people that are pissed at Powell as I believe he was put into an un-envying position. Hell, I’ve liked Colin Powell since I first became aware of him during the first Gulf War, following his career and thinking that one day HE would be the one running for president… unfortunately his career took a divergent and utterly destructive path in the form of accepting the offer from George W. Bush to become his SOS and since his resignation he’s been on what I call a ‘search for atonement.’

(Don’t ask about his support of Ted Stevens (r-AK) in his corruption trial as that one still boggles my mind… but I’m getting off track…)

Powell furthered that ‘search for atonement’ Sunday, not just because he endorsed Obama but he also systematically dismantled the foundation of the McPalin campaign while still labeling himself a republican.

That’s why I think the endorsement is an indictment of the gop more than anything else. And although McCain would never say it publically, this has to hurt… for no other reason than Powell maintains he’s a republican and yet can’t bring himself to endorse his party’s candidate.

Now is not the time to be discussing a place for Powell in an Obama cabinet… after all, that’s for people much smarter than I to decide. Now is the time to listen to what Powell said Sunday and has continued to say since; McCain is not running a clean campaign… Palin is not experienced enough to be VP… McCain’s judgment is not to be trusted.

Keep that in mind when you head to the polls in the days ahead… and perhaps on November 5th our nation will wake up with a new direction slated to being on January 20th of 2009.

The Wednesday ‘BushWhack’ing

TBWA thinks it’s all Chris Matthew’s fault as he “laid a trap” and we walked into it… and by that we mean Rep. Bachmann is crazy as a loon.

• Here’s something that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, let alone Henry Paulson. A new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows that 64% of Americans aren't happy with the way Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is handling his job and 56% aren’t happy with the financial bailout he and Congress created…
• Another CNN/Opinion Research poll shows some potentially bad news for Sen. McCain… but his campaign should be used to that now, right?
• Today’s CNN headline that makes me laugh out loud so hard that someone comes into my office to make sure I’m okay; “Palin would concentrate on reform, energy as VP.” (What? Not foreign policy?? Isn’t that supposed to be her so-called area of expertise?)
• So far indications of early voting (which makes some conservatives blind with rage) are suggesting a record turnout for the election...
• During an event in San Francisco yesterday morning, a protester tried to place Karl Rove under citizens arrest… (do citizens arrests ever work??)
• Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff joins Sen. Biden as ‘Mr. Good News Happy Guy” as he is now saying; “terrorists may see the change to a new U.S. president over the next six months as a prime chance to attack, no matter who wins the White House.” (Note to Biden and Chertoff; how about we not give them any ideas and not dare them… ya schmucks)
• And have we mentioned? That Gov. Palin charged the state of Alaska for her kid’s travels? (I am shocked, shocked to find gambling in this establishment…) The charges, which included events that the kids were not invited to and in which she later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business, included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join her in watching her husband, their father, in a snowmobile race (that’s official business… how?) and a trip to New York in which she attended a five-hour conference and then stayed with her eldest daughter for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel… (my point? Expect the same thing if she were to become VP, only on a much larger scale. It’s been proven that Palin is not to be trusted… and her background of using her office for leverage and revenge is a staggering sign of how things would be if she worked in the OEOB… VOTE OBAMA!)

13 Days to Go

With 13 days to go, here’s what the candidates are doing…

Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden are in Virginia, meeting with their Senior Working Group on National Security.

Sen. McCain is holding a meet and greet in Manchester, NH before heading to rallies in Ohio…

Gov. Palin is campaigning in Ohio…

A Guest Post

Good Evening all, it's Scott, and tonight I have the pleasure of bringing you a guest post from someone just as snarky and full of attitude as me. Who is this you may be asking..??? None other than my better half, the person who keeps me in line....which is no small task ! That's right, my wife. Okay, I'll shut -up now.....


Whatz the deal with...

I just don't get it. I have some very educated and enlightened (or so I thought) friends. They sit on the "other" side of the table, and yes, you can take that as Republican. But when it comes to libeling an individual with baseless accusations and rogue rumors, they just BLINDLY forward me their lemming crap.

You guessed it; I am fighting an onslaught of Barak Obama urban legends and Muslim rumors in my inbox.

At first, I politely respond, asking them not to believe everything they read in an email or on the internet...as things have a way of getting twisted...not stating one side of this political debate or another. Just a friendly...you know..."you might want to check out what you just sent me, because it's not really true" response to their emails.

This polite and non partisan reply seems to have back fired on me. The more I politely respond and cite fact to their incorrectness, (thank you Scott and Kemp for all your assistance with this...) the more crap they send me. I mean I must have gotten 10 emails after lunch today from one person alone!

I throw my hands up in the air in surrender. I am just deleting these emails now without responding as 1) it gets me nowhere and 2) it's taking to much (of Kemp's and Scott's) time-of course not to mention mine. {Side note-I am starting to be able to find stuff all by myself...}

Now, here's the question to ponder and pose to our Republican friends...Do you see a bunch of baseless and wild McCain internet rumors just flying through our emails? Hmmm, I think the answer to this is...um...NO! What I do see: facts and figures about McCain's voting record and constantly contradicting himself.

And to my dear, Christian ultra-conservative friends- please remember his adulterous affairs prior to marrying Cindy-oh and dare I mention that Cindy is one of his adulterous affairs? I consider myself a Christian and I'll admit to lean toward the conservative side of the fence, but when I hear Christians spouting out that they can't vote Obama on their Christian prinicples, they'd better take a GOOD look at the candidate they want to back. Mr. Squeaky Clean, he ain't.

I also see Gov. Palin's Trooper-gate, pregnant daughter (look at pictures of her from February...she looked pretty preggers there...timing very interesting to Sarah's baby, but I digress), and her husband Steve, who seemed to "take advantage" of Sarah being the Governor. This coupled with the fact that she can't talk intelligently in an interview (think Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson here), has proven that she's "not ready for prime time".

I think our Republican friends are a tad scared of having an educated man of color in the white house. So, to fend this off, they feel the need to take quotes from his book totally out of context and add their own wildy frightened take on it and send it out in an outraged email, hoping that everyone believes that Obama is a MALE MUSLIM EXTREMIST. (That's one of my favorite emails of late...gotten it more times than I can count and, yes, I just made it a race issue-GOP lemmings did when then sent me the MME stuff.)

Am I overreacting? I don't know. But one thing that raises my hackles are the lies that go around unchecked and are blindly believed as fact. I ask that when you vote (Obama), you do it as an educated voter, not as an emotional voter. Emotions wax and wane, but the facts are always there.

Okay, I'll step off my soapbox for now......

Gail

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, the Houston Chronicle is asking the question I’ve been asking for days weeks months now; “Who are the at 15% of people that think the US is on the right track?”

Who indeed…

According to the article those that make up the 15% are older, less educated, conservative and supporters of John McCain.

Kind of says it all right there, doesn’t it?

While the Chronicle’s explanation is good, I continue to maintain that these 15% are among the 23% that still think “President” Bush is doing a good job and see the world in a constant rose-colored hue.

That… or they’re dumb as a box of rocks.

The Tuesday ‘BushWhack’ing

TBWA is ‘big and strong’…

• Sen. Obama is briefly suspending his campaign in order to fly back to Hawaii to see his gravely ill grandmother…
• At a rally in Florida yesterday, Sen. Hillary Clinton urged supporters to “close the deal” and back Obama…
• He won’t say anything publically, but it’s a safe bet to say that Sen. McCain is reeling from Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama… not for the endorsement itself, but rather have precise Mr. Powell was in admonishing the McCain campaign.
• A new CNN/Opinion Research poll shows that Americans are angry and 75% of those surveyed said things are going badly in the United States and they’re worried over the state of the nation…(Did we really need a poll to tell us that? Things right now are not good; the economy is in the crapper, we’re in an endless war and a forgotten war, we’ve lost our standing in the world, and our presidential campaign has turned into a mud-slinging contest. Is it any wonder Americans are pissed? The next president, whomever it might be – Vote Obama – has quite a challenge on his hands…)
• The trial of Alaskan senator Ted Stevens is winding down…
• Do you remember in the final debate when McCain accused Obama of supporting ACORN and said that ACORN is trying to disrupt democracy and commit voter fraud? Well, people in glass campaigns shouldn’t throw stones as it’s been revealed that his campaign has directed $175,000 to the firm of a republican operative that was just accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states… oops.
• Mark Zandi of Economy.com says that 27 US states are in recession and 14 more are near recession... meaning that a majority of US states are now either in or are “dangerously close to recession.”
• And have we mentioned? That Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is spouting ridiculousness abroad again? A month ago Ms. Rice said the ‘fundamentals of the US economy are strong”, repeating an oft-used McCain talking point. Despite the collapse of a few major corporations, a bailout and repeated calls for another economic stimulus package in the last few weeks, she told the BBC yesterday that the economy is “big and strong.” (Um…yeah… perhaps you should stick to policy and not talk about the economy Ms. Rice. And learn this word; Re-cess-ion…)

14 Days to Go

With 14 days to go, here’s what the candidates are doing today…

Sen. Obama is holding rallies in Lake Worth and Miami, Florida…

Sen. Biden is in Colorado…

Sen. McCain is in Bensalem, Harrisburg and Moon Township, Pennsylvania

Gov. Palin is Nevada…

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard… former SOS Colin Powell is not sitting quietly by after his endorsement of Sen. Obama.

Following his endorsement of Obama, Mr. Powell met up with some reporters outside the ‘Meet the Press’ studios… and when asked about the highly negative tone of the McCain campaign, Powell couldn’t hide his disappointment, saying; “And now I guess the message this week is we're going to call him a socialist. Mr. Obama is now a socialist, because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have. Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them, in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good. And there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more or who should be paying less, and for us to say that makes you a socialist is an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate.”

Well said Mr. Powell, keep it up.

Invalid McCain Talking Point No. 442

Note to Sen McCain on his attempts to label Sen. Obama a ‘socialist.’

The Illinois organizer for Communist Party USA, John Bachtell, calls attempts by the McCain campaign to label Obama a socialist as both offensive to socialists AND a desperate attempt to tap into fears of voters who haven't forgotten their Cold War rhetoric… in other words, McCain’s trying to fear-monger.

Said Bachtell; "Red baiting is really the last refuge of scoundrels. […] It has nothing to do with the issues that are confronting the American people right now. It's just a big diversion.”
Ya think?

So when socialists themselves say Obama isn’t a socialist… wouldn’t that be a signal to, perhaps, give up that talking point?

I would think so… but then again, I have my own brain and can use it as such.

The Monday ‘BushWhack’ing

Monday already… son of a—

• As Traders geared up for testimony from Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke later this morning, stocks rallied this morning as investors welcomed signs that the lending market is improving after weeks of global efforts…
• Sen. McCain loves being an underdog… (and his past campaigns reflect that, which is one of many reasons I continue to tell people to NOT get complacent… we haven’t won anything yet)
• While Sen. Obama’s campaign announced that they had raised $150 million in the month of September, they were also celebrating an endorsement from former Secretary of State Colin Powell (which Scott wrote about HERE)…
• Note to McCain; Obama isn’t a Socialist… and the majority of Americans probably don’t even know what a Socialist is anyway, so perhaps you should get some new talking-points. On second thought, keep yapping about that, it can only help us in the end.
• Good article on CNN (relax, it’s not really by CNN personalities but rather Stuart Rothenberg)… give it a read HERE.
• Four words; Obama. Rally. 100,000 people… ‘nuff said!
• A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that 52% of Americans say that McCain’s choice of Palin as his running mate has made them “less confident” in the kind of decisions he’d make as president, up 13 points since Palin’s selection was immediately announced… (which means that the more people hear her speak, the more they think she was the wrong choice. Could you imagine what that percentage would be if the McCain campaign had actually allowed her to, you know, give interviews to people outside the Fox “News” sphere of republican influence?)
• And have we mentioned? That Minnesota republican Rep. Michele Bachmann is trying to back-pedal so hard, she may lose her seat? Appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball Friday night, she responded to Chris Matthew’s question; “…So you believe that Barack Obama may have anti-American views?” by saying; “Absolutely. I’m very concerned he may have anti-American views.” Well, since then she’s been showered with criticism and has seen her Democratic Congressional rival, Elwyn Tinklenberg, raise $640,000 in that short time. Yesterday she appeared on a local CBS affiliate and denied she ever called Mr. Obama’s views “anti-American”… but as you can clearly see; she did. This isn’t the first time Bachmann has said something glaringly stupid only to have to backtrack after it pisses her constituents off… hopefully all of them remember her inane comments and vote her out of office next month if an aptly embarrassing fashion…

15 Days to Go...

With 15 days to go and here’s where the candidates will be today…

Sen. Obama has rallies in Tampa and Orlando, Florida…

Sen. McCain has stops scheduled in Columbia, St. Louis & Kansas City, Missouri…

Sen. Biden has no public events scheduled…

Gov. Palin has rallies in Colorado…