The Next American President

Congratulations to Barack Obama in achieving the next milestone on his way to becoming the next American President.

His speech at the close of the DNC yesterday was inspiring and gave Americans hope for the future.

After eight years of bush administration repression, his plans for America's future have restored the faith in government and the American way of life.

Let us all band together, as Americans, and help elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Wake Up America

There were many inspirational moments at the DNC, started by a "never gonna hold me down or keep me away" speech given the first night of the convention by an ailing Ted Kennedy.

Everyone knows that he has been battling a malignant brain tumor, but few realized that he was admitted to a hospital this past weekend with kidney stones and left the hospital against doctor's advice to make an emotional and high powered speech in Denver at the DNC.

THAT'S how important this election is.

The other rousing address of the convention came from Congress member and former Presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich. In an afternoon speech, Kucinich said the Bush administration invaded Iraq for oil. He also warned of the looming threat of a US attack on Iran.

“Wake up, America! In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the neocon artists seized the economy and added $4 trillion of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defense, three times more for gasoline and home heating oil, and twice what we paid for healthcare.” Kucinich stated, bring the crowd to its feet in what I consider to be the most pointed speech of the convention.

There was much talk about "supporting the troops" and the struggling economy, education and healthcare but the MAIN issue concerning Fed Up American's - CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS - received little mention.

In the last eight years, under the bush administration, America has seen the very foundations of a proud country, dismantled in the name of "national security" and in the "war on terror." We have been victim of warrantless wiretaps, unreasonable search and seizure and detention of citizens without charge.

All to make us feel "safe."

But the reality is, America is more of a target for terrorism than it was pre 9/11. Americans feel less safe now than they felt prior to the events on September 11th and I attribute that fact to the bush controlled media and the fear tactics employed, pounding the imagined threat into the heads of citizens day in and day out since bush took office.

America is being transformed from a democracy to a fascist state. This is evident by the actions of its elected leaders to the beat cop on patrol that believe the Constitution is nothing but a "God damn piece of paper." Obsession with national security and a government controlled mass media has been the strategy of the republican party.

And its time to heed the words of Dennis Kucinich.

"Wake up America!"

Fascist Police Actions Caught On Tape At DNC

Where Has My America Gone?

Welcome to America.

Where protesters are “terrorists” and indiscriminate violence by fascist fucking cops against citizens is "keeping the peace."

This country was founded on the principle that WE THE PEOPLE have the right to protest or even OVERTHROW a government that violates our rights - all these fake "peace keepers" need to go read the declaration of independence.

It’s a sad state of affairs when politicians and police treat protesters as criminals and terrorists and spend millions of dollars on weapons to attack and control the public. Fascism is alive and well in America, justified in the name of “security”.

And we all know what Benjamin Franklin said about people who trade freedom for security. The United States Constitution is clearly written and it states that Congress shall make NO LAW abridging the freedom of speech or the press or of the people to peaceably assemble.

The footage outside the convention is quite disturbing. The actions of the Denver police against peaceful demonstrators is even more disturbing.

What is MOST disturbing is the lack of coverage of these fascist police actions by our government controlled media.

As far as I’m concerned, all this is just more reason to get out in the streets - at the conventions AND in our local communities. But when you do get out, be smart and be aware of what’s waiting for you and wear protective padding under your clothes.

Wear steel-toe boots, soccer shinguards, a hockey players girdle that shields your kidneys (a favorite target for police nightsticks) and a catchers chest pad to protect your ribs, as well as a gas mask and a solid helmet (not one of those cheap bicycle helmets that shatters on the first impact), and a thick leather jacket.

Your very life may depend on it.

Level the playing field and wear as much body armor as the fascist cops that want to take away your right to peacefully assemble.

That might seem excessive, but I’ve seen a lot of people get badly brutalized and come home from legal nonviolent peaceful protests with broken bones and worse. People who don’t have healthcare because of what America has turned into.

The government’s assault on freedom didn’t start with Bush and it won’t end with Bush.

I think it says something pretty profound about the state of “democracy” in america when people have to wear more padding then professional athletes in order to exercise their fundamental right to free speech, but if we don’t want to lose the few rights we do have left, we’ve got to stay in the streets.

Fool Me Once...

I see a very disturbing trend among the democratic, liberal, progressive, left wing blogs and forums (or whatever you want to call them) and it seems to be cut from a page of the Karl Rove playbook of political cheats.

To see the various blogs and forum comments out there, I have seen quite a bit about McShitstain and little of Obama. The FACT that McShitstain is a blithering idiot that has NEVER achieved any degree of success (unless banging a millionairess can be considered successful) and Obama is a self made man of honor that holds a law degree and was once a constitutional law professor.

Yet the focus seems to be mostly on McShitstain's shortcomings and political gaffes.

The American people have become more and more stupid with every election cycle and will vote for the candidate whose name they can identify with the most, so even with negative publicity, McShitstain is on the minds of the democrats.

If you have noticed recently, I have done little to even mention the name of the right wing devil and have given him a new, more fitting name, on my website and on my show. I refuse to fall victim to the political games being played by the republicunts and will escalate my efforts to sing the praises of America's next President and only hope for recovery:

Barack Obama.

It would truly be an American tragedy to have the republicunts steal yet another presidential election.

Friday's Show

I would like to thank Sgt. Rossi and Officer Vasquez of the Du Page County Sherrif's department for fucking up my show this past Friday. Archives available here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/fedupamerican/va/2008/08/23/fed-up-american-primetime

But come to think of it, when life gives you lemons, make some fucking lemonade. Their fascist actions NO DOUBT could be used to promote my book "To Serve and Protect? - MY ASS!" available at: http://www.lulu.com/content/2920398

So what happened???

I have been a renter for the last few years and have been battling a schizophrenic tenant that recently moved into my building as well as a landlady that has been off her psych meds for a while now. These two mental cases have been tag teaming me since early July to get my apartment.

Both being from Lithuania, they developed a bond of harassment against me and Sue Cauler because we are not from their third world country. Upon some investigation, I have discovered quite a disturbing history of the property that we were residing in, including the fact that the building was not zoned or licensed to be a multi family rental property.

Since this schizzy tenant moved in this past July, the police were called about a dozen times for various bullshit reasons including when the idiot landlords 16 year old son came over with bolt cutters wanting to cut the power lines to the building.

This past Friday was the 12th time the police were called. This time because the schizzy tenant decided to shut the water off to the entire building and refused to answer the knock at her door from the cop. We had major concerns about all this because she (the schizzy tennant) has a three year old child, they were both in their unit and this woman said on many occasions that she wanted to kill herself.

But, to my surprise, the police took the side of the landlord and at the time of the show, were threatening to arrest Sue Cauler and myself because we called them out a second time when schizzy decided to show her pock marked face after the cop left the first time.

She has falsely accused people of stabbing her sons inflatable ball with a knife, stalking, assault and various other things that her mentally unstable mind can come up with - for the sole purpose of getting my apartment.

I had to put forth the startegies outlined in my book to combat an arrest from the sherrif, BUT as I stated before, when life presents you lemons, make lemonade.

Sue and I have decided to buy a house and become homeowners, taking advantage of a struggling real estate market, which will be the subject of my next book.

It has been said that things happen for a reason and the bullshit that these two foreign bitches put us through have inspired us to take a step up in our lives.

A Fed Up American will ALWAYS win.

A Conversation I Overheard

I was having breakfast at a local diner on Sunday when I overheard an interesting conversation.

There was a group of seniors at a table near me that was complaining about their medical co-pays, prescription costs and, of course, the economy, which then turned to the election.

I assume the majority were Republicans from their remarks over McCain being the best their party had. Then came talk of not voting at all.

Most agreed they wouldn't bother, even though they weren't sure about a black man being president. While I was bothered by the black remarks, I sat smiling as the demographic McCain is relying so heavily upon was slamming him and talking of not voting at all.

That is when one of the old gents stood up, wagging his finger and said, "Listen. This isn't about black and white. It's about good people and bad people. I've voted Republican all my life, but they have screwed us and this country. It's time we show them what's what. I'm voting for the black kid. He's a smart young man and a good person. You should all vote for him too."

It was all I could do not jump up and yell, "Go Grampa!"

GO BAMA!!!

America's next president

Food For Thought

1. The number of alcohol poisoning deaths in the United States is shockingly high, consistently between 300 and 400 each year. The number of annual deaths from marijuana poisoning remains -- as always -- zero.

2. The number of alcohol poisoning deaths spiked just as the U.S. government started going all out to demonize marijuana, deploying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of anti-marijuana ads on TV, on radio and in print.

One can't help but wonder if this is really just coincidence. The recent low point came in 2000, with 327 alcohol poisoning deaths overall, 16 of them among college-age Americans. In 2001, the Bush administration came into office, with anti-marijuana zealot John Walters taking over as drug czar late in the year.

Shortly thereafter, Walters began his moronic anti-marijuana crusade.

The airwaves were soon filled with commercials telling teens and their parents that lighting up a joint could lead to shooting your friends, getting pregnant, running over little girls on bicycles or supporting terrorists. Walters made wild statements, claiming that marijuana potency had increased up to 20-fold (a claim he's since backed off from but never directly retracted).

The message was clear: Forget everything you think you know about marijuana being relatively harmless -- this stuff is dangerous, addictive and scary.

But the REAL facts are that alcohol is in fact far more dangerous health-wise and addicting than marijuana.

I.O.U.S.A.

The Religious Wrong

There is a pastor of a Baptist church in Waynesville, N.C., who took it upon himself to excommunicate all church members who will be voting democrat in the 2008 presidential election.

"Repent" or "get out" were the options dictated to any and all left-leaning members of the congregation, no matter their dedication to the church or Christian doctrine.

This incident is an extreme but telling illustration of a misinformed notion held by far too many Americans today: Faith belongs solely to those occupying the right margin of the political spectrum.

The religious right has rewritten the book on faith in the United States, guiding the aim from social justice and reconciliation to judgment and division. The right votes on so-called "moral values," supporting candidates who attack individuals based on a self-conceived moral high ground, but at the same time ignore their own contributions to economic inequality, environmental ruin and encouragement of war through support of hawkish candidates.

According to the Children's Defense Fund, right now in the United States a child is born into poverty every 44 seconds. Every three hours, a child or youth is killed by a gun. Here in the wealthiest nation in the world, every minute, a baby is born without health insurance, and 90 percent of these children live in working families.

There are three million Americans in prison, many of whom are drug addicts serving time but not receiving the help necessary to overcome addiction. In Sudan, innocent people are victims of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement at the hands of the government-backed Janjaweed.Yet the Bush administration and Republican-controlled Congress - the self-appointed stewards of Christianity - have yet to address these issues.

The number of Americans living in poverty has increased every year President Bush has been in office. The same goes for the number of uninsured Americans. Conservatives adhere to the tenet of law enforcement over treatment when it comes to drug offenders despite the fact that most studies show treatment to be more effective, according to the PBS Frontline special "Does Treatment Work."

For the most part, it is liberal America calling attention to these problems and feeling the moral responsibility to bring them to an end. The United States government cannot solve all the problems facing the world nor its individual citizens, and in many instances it should not.

Personal responsibility is a conservative tagline that gets thrown around quite often but is still an important principle to those with other political leanings.

However, the government can and should make life a little easier for the average American - make college tuition affordable for young adults who dream of a better future, ensure that every child receives care when ill, help those trapped in a substance dependence so strong that they cannot lead productive live and guarantee that every soldier who serves his country honorably receives a living standard and healthcare worthy to match his sacrifices.

And when an entire nation such as Sudan is suffering daily due to atrocities sanctioned by its own government, the United States has the moral obligation to condemn those responsible, not sit idly by and remain indifferent.

"Feed the hungry! Help those in trouble! Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you shall be as bright as day," the Bible tells us in Isaiah 58:10. We have the ability to do these things, to reach out to each other and help those in need. To hold this capacity and refuse to act may be our nation's greatest sin.

IF I was to believe in this shit.

Legacy Of Incompetence

When bush exits the White House in January, he will leave behind a federal government in shambles.

Since his first term, Bush has pressed forward with a radical view of the executive branch. Beyond adopting autocratic positions on foreign policy and taking broad liberties to subvert the Bill of Rights, Bush has waged a quieter — and perhaps more damaging — war at home against the very agencies under his charge.

From formaldehyde-soaked FEMA trailers, tainted pharmaceuticals and politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys, to allegations of retaliation against government whistleblowers and an exodus of career officials from key regulatory positions, the bush administration has lorded over a highly politicized and increasingly ineffective federal bureaucracy.

Policy analysts and legal scholars paint a picture of an executive intent on controlling every aspect of the federal bureaucracy, in particular the agencies tasked with regulating industry and commerce.

Taken as a whole, the president’s rejection of international law and his consolidation of administrative oversight are representative of a decades-long effort by conservatives to implement a so-called “unitary executive theory” — a euphemism for virtually unlimited presidential power.

But for such a creation to succeed, the executive must assert its influence over all aspects of government, from the top down, through the ranks of the roughly 3 million civilian employees that today work in government jobs at more than 100 agencies and sub-agencies.
Even his detractors say this is something bush has been especially adept at.

“Despite their ineptitude in a lot of other areas and how poor they are at governing, one of the things the bush administration has been very good at is using administrative mechanisms to control policy outcomes,” says Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy at the nonpartisan watchdog group OMB Watch.

bush didn’t invent this theory, but regulatory experts say his administration has worked harder than any other to perfect it.

“I have worked on regulatory issues inside the Beltway since 1976, and have watched five presidents come and go,” says Rena Steinzor, president of the Center for Progressive Reform and a professor at University of Maryland Law School. “The bush administration is the most hostile and aggressive toward these agencies by a couple of orders of magnitude, making the Reagan era look relatively benign.”

Steinzor says the next president will face a daunting task in putting the house back in order: “No matter who is elected in November, it will take years to repair this damage.”

The damage is evident in almost every federal agency and characterized most visibly by dwindling morale among career civil servants. None have suffered more than those in the scientific community, which has been forced to confront a growing cadre of inexperienced political appointees bent on pursuing a pro-business agenda.

An April survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that nearly two-thirds of responding Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists said they experienced political interference with their work.

“Politics is injected and elevated into decisions where science and rational judgment should prevail,” Melberth says. “Politics supersedes scientific and technical information that is critical to protecting our environment and health and safety at home and in the workplace.”

What’s more, research by political science professor David E. Lewis of Vanderbilt University shows that politicization results in lower agency competence and that political appointee-run programs earn systematically lower grades in most management areas.

Says Lewis: “Many of the politicization scandals in this administration came from cases where unqualified or inexperienced people got into key jobs … often with the power to hire others or control information flows.”

The Age Of The Democrat

Even the top Republican in charge of the party's Senate campaigns concedes that the GOP will lose seats this year - the only question is how many.

With President Bush's ratings at rock-bottom, fewer Republicans signing up to vote, and voters nationally gravitating toward Democrats in public polls, the GOP is bracing for defeats in November that will expand Democrats' now razor-thin 51-49 majority in the Senate.

Democrats have solid chances of winning five seats, according to strategists in both parties and public polls, and realistic shots at picking off another three to five Republican senators. Republicans have only one good opportunity for replacing a Democrat, in Louisiana.

A quirk of the political calendar - Republicans are defending 23 seats this year to Democrats' 12 - put the GOP at a disadvantage from the start. Worse still, those include five Republican retirements - which typically make it harder to keep a seat - compared to none among Democrats.

The scent of defeat threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophecy: Republican donors are sitting on their hands, giving Democrats a nearly 2-to-1 advantage in fundraising that limits the GOP's ability to defend key seats.

Democrats are pouring cash into TV advertising and on-the-ground voter mobilization. They're competing aggressively in 11 states, including GOP strongholds like Alaska, North Carolina and Virginia that they hope to convert by translating Barack Obama's appeal to African-American and young voters into wins for Democratic Senate candidates.

"It shapes up to be a very good Democratic year.

More bush Immunity

A federal appeals court has ruled that Saudi Arabia and four of its princes cannot be held liable in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The appeals court issued the ruling Thursday, saying the Saudi defendants are protected by sovereign immunity.

It also agreed with a lower court that a Saudi banker and a charitable organization cannot be held liable.

Read more: http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_10201807

How The Democrats Can Lose The Election

By Michael Moore

For years now, nearly every poll has shown that the American people are right in sync with the platform of the Democratic Party. They are pro-environment, pro-women's rights and pro-choice. They don't like war. They want the minimum wage raised, and they want a single-payer universal health-care system. The American public agrees with the Republican Party on only one major issue: They support the death penalty.

So you would think the Democrats would be cleaning up, election after election.

Obviously not.

The Democrats appear to be professional losers. They are so pathetic in their ability to win elections, they even lose when they win! So when you hear Democrats and liberals and supporters of Barack Obama say they are worried that John McCain has a good chance of winning, they ain't a-kidding. Who would know better than the very people who have handed the Republicans one election after another on a silver platter? Yes, be afraid, be very afraid.

In an effort to help the party doofuses and pundits -- and the candidate himself -- spare all of us another suicide-inducing election night, as the results giving.

Forget that this was a historic year for women.

Obama should be making a speech about gender like the brilliant one he gave on race back in March. Millions of people, especially women, had high hopes for the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Attention must be paid. And you don't pay attention to it by having your advisers run your wife through the makeover machine, trying to soften her up and pipe her down. Michelle Obama has been one of the most refreshing things about this election year. But within weeks of the end of the primary season, the handlers stepped in to deal with the "Michelle problem."

What problem? She speaks her mind? She wears what she wants? Her biggest sin, according to the punditocracy, was to say that, as a black woman, this may be the first time in her adult life she's been really proud of her country. Shock! Surprise! Outrage! But not from any of the black women I know.

You have to be white and stupid to not know what she was really saying. If you don't understand, let me ask you this: Have you been proud of what this country has been doing in the past few years? Are you proud your neighbors had their house taken from them? Are you proud to be sending a good chunk of your paycheck to the oil companies so they can post record profits? Are you proud to know your vice president outed one of our spies and put her life and the lives of others at risk?

That's all she was saying -- what we are all feeling.

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both lost the white-male vote but won the White House. They did so by winning the black, Hispanic and female vote. That HAS to be Obama's strategy to win. Otherwise, Cindy McCain will be our new First Lady.

Show up to a gunfight with a peashooter.

Convince yourself that the Republicans are just going to roll over and play dead because there is simply no life left in their party. Convince yourself this one is in the bag! Convince yourself that if you play by the rules, the Republicans will too.

And when McCain and his people roll out their nuclear arsenal on you, just go all sweet and sensitive and logical. Believe that the truth shall prevail, that good people will see what the Republicans are up to. As they smear you, your family, your religious beliefs -- cower, back down, go on the defensive.

If they say you should quit your church, quit your church! If they explode over your speaking the truth about the anger and despair of the white working class, take it all back! If they ask you to stand on your head and do the hokeypokey, snap to it and do it with a smile on your face -- and don't forget to apologize for not doing the hokeypokey earlier; you meant no disrespect, and please don't take it as any indication that you do not love your country, your flag and your Christian God.

Do all of that and then listen for that sound -- the sound of your supporters shuffling away in silence. They'll stop showing up at campaign headquarters. They'll say they're too busy to go on another door-to-door literature drop. On Election Day, they'll do their duty and vote, but they will not be up at 6 a.m. driving around the city's neighborhoods, picking up strangers who need a ride to the polls.

And on the way to the polls, some of them might just come to a stoplight, turn around and go home. Maybe they'll pick up a six-pack on the way. Maybe there's a new episode of Deal or No Deal on tonight. That would be nice. The girls are pretty, especially the blonde in the third row. Wait, they're all blond. No, not that one -- THAT one! Oh yes, I see her. She is pretty. But the Man in the Booth has picked up the phone! He's calling down to you. Deal? Or no deal? No deal! No deal! Don't do it! Hey, I'm outta beer! Why didn't I pick up a case? Now I gotta spend eight bucks on gas to go buy more beer! Aaaaarrrggggghhhhhh!!!! HOWIE MANDEL ISN'T WEARING A FLAG PIN!! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Denounce me!
Obama, at some point, might be asked this question: "Michael Moore has endorsed you. But he recently said (fill in the blank with some outrageously offensive line taken out of context). Will you still accept his endorsement, or do you denounce him?"

And he better denounce me, or they will tear him to shreds. He had better back away not only from me but from anyone and everyone who veers a bit too far to the left of where his advisers have told him is the sweet spot for all those red-state voters. I won't take it personally. After all, I'm not the guy who married him or baptized his kids. I'm just the idiot who went to the same terrorist, Muslim school of flag-pin desecrators he went to.

I remember poor John Kerry not even being able to admit, when asked by Larry King, if he had seen Fahrenheit 9/11. "No," he said, "I haven't. . . . I don't plan to, right now." But he had indeed seen it. I sat there watching him say this, and I just felt sorry for him and for the election he was about to lose.

We can't take four more years of this madness, Barack. We need you to be a candidate who will fight back every time they attack you. Actually, don't even wait till you have to fight back. Fight first! Show some vision and courage and smoke them out. Keep asking why these lobbyists are McCain's best friends. Let's finally have a Democrat who's got the balls to fire first.

So Barack, by denouncing me, you can help McCain get elected. Because when you denounce me, it's not really me you're distancing yourself from -- it's the millions upon millions of people who feel the same way about things as I do. And many of them are the kind of crazy voters who have no problem voting for a Nader just to prove a point.

Elections have been lost by just 537 votes. I don't want that to happen to you.

From the forthcoming book "Mike's Election Guide," by Michael Moore. Copyright © 2008 by Michael Moore.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

Democracy Inaction

Iraq and Afghanistan are the messes getting attention today, but they are only symptoms of a much broader cancer in American foreign policy.

A few glimpses of this larger affliction:

• The United States has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats.
• This year alone, the United States Army will add about 7,000 soldiers to its total; that’s more people than in the entire American Foreign Service.
• More than 1,000 American diplomatic positions are vacant because the Foreign Service is so short-staffed, but a myopic Congress is refusing to finance even modest new hiring. Some 1,100 could be hired for the cost of a single C-17 military cargo plane.

In short, the United States is hugely overinvesting in military tools and underinvesting in diplomatic tools. The result is a lopsided foreign policy that antagonizes the rest of the world and is ineffective in tackling many modern problems.[..]

Dennis Ross, the longtime Middle East peace negotiator, says he has been frustrated “beyond belief” to see resources showered on the military while diplomacy has to fight for scraps. Mr. Ross argues that an investment of just $1 billion - financing job creation and other grass-roots programs in the West Bank - could significantly increase the prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace. But that money isn’t forthcoming.

Our intuitive approach to fighting terrorists and insurgents is to blow things up. But one of the most cost-effective counterterrorism methods in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan may be to build things up, like schooling and microfinance. Girls’ education sometimes gets more bang for the buck than a missile.

A new study from the RAND Corporation examined how 648 terror groups around the world ended between 1968 and 2006. It found that by far the most common way for them to disappear was to be absorbed by the political process. The second most common way was to be defeated by police work. In contrast, in only 7 percent of cases did military force destroy the terrorist group.

“There is no battlefield solution to terrorism,” the report declares. “Military force usually has the opposite effect from what is intended.”

The next president should absorb that lesson and revalidate diplomacy as the primary tool of foreign policy - even if that means talking to ogres.

This was the approach that Rove, et al. sneered at. Remind me again, how well did their approach work?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result.

Maybe it’s time to stop the insanity.

republican Demise

So the G.O.P. has found its issue for the 2008 election. For the next three months the party plans to keep chanting:

"Drill here! Drill now! Drill here! Drill now!

And the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I've been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the "party of ideas," have become the party of stupid.

Now, I don't mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don't mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism - the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there's something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise - has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party's de facto slogan has become: "Real men don't think things through."

In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: "The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking," said Representative John Shadegg.

What about the experts at the Department of Energy who say that it would take years before offshore drilling would yield any oil at all, and that even then the effect on prices at the pump would be "insignificant"? Presumably they're just a bunch of wimps, probably Democrats. And the Democrats, as Representative Michele Bachmann assures us, "want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, take light rail to their government jobs."

Is this political pitch too dumb to succeed? Don't count on it.

Remember how the Iraq war was sold. The stuff about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds was just window dressing. The main political argument was, "They attacked us, and we're going to strike back" - and anyone who tried to point out that Saddam and Osama weren't the same person was an effete snob who hated America, and probably looked French.

Let's also not forget that for years President Bush was the center of a cult of personality that lionized him as a real-world Forrest Gump, a simple man who prevails through his gut instincts and moral superiority. "Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man," declared Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal in 2004. "He's not an intellectual. Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world."

It wasn't until Hurricane Katrina - when the heckuva job done by the man of whom Ms. Noonan said, "if there's a fire on the block, he'll run out and help" revealed the true costs of obliviousness - that the cult began to fade.

What's more, the politics of stupidity didn't just appeal to the poorly informed. Bear in mind that members of the political and media elites were more pro-war than the public at large in the fall of 2002, even though the flimsiness of the case for invading Iraq should have been even more obvious to those paying close attention to the issue than it was to the average voter.

Why were the elite so hawkish? Well, I heard a number of people express privately the argument that some influential commentators made publicly - that the war was a good idea, not because Iraq posed a real threat, but because beating up someone in the Middle East, never mind who, would show Muslims that we mean business. In other words, even alleged wise men bought into the idea of macho posturing as policy.

All this is in the past. But the state of the energy debate shows that Republicans, despite Mr. Bush's plunge into record unpopularity and their defeat in 2006, still think that know-nothing politics works. And they may be right.

Sad to say, the current drill-and-burn campaign is getting some political traction. According to one recent poll, 69 percent of Americans now favor expanded offshore drilling - and 51 percent of them believe that removing restrictions on drilling would reduce gas prices within a year.

The headway Republicans are making on this issue won't prevent Democrats from expanding their majority in Congress, but it might limit their gains - and could conceivably swing the presidential election, where the polls show a much closer race.

In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country's problems. It's not going to happen - not as long as one of America's two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy.

Salute Obama

One Nation under a New Obama Salute.

If a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will see fans meet him with his own salute like the one pictured.

"Our goal is to see a crowd of 75,000 people at Obama's nomination speech holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country, a renewed hope, and acceptance of responsibility for our future," says Rick Husong, owner of The Loyalty Inc.

Husong tells me that he got the idea after seeing the famous Obama-Progress poster by artist Shepherd Fairey. "We wanted to get involved some way," he says. So, the agency came up with their own a symbol of hope and progress that also plays off Obama's name.

"We thought, 'Let's try and start a movement where even while walking down the street, people would hold up the O and you would know that they were for Obama,' " says Husong. Much thought went into the relatively simple idea. "You interlace your hands in a circle, the interlacing being a symbol of different types of people coming together and the circle a symbol of unity," he says.

Their design, unlike Fairey's, is free, and Husong is urging people to download it and print it on posters and T-shirts. "We want to see it everywhere, but more importantly we want this sign to take the world by storm."

Presidential Debate Schedule

Oh I just can't wait for these to take place.

In this corner, is a Harvard graduate, twelve year constitutional law professor from the University of Chicago.

In the other corner, you have sleepy time McShitstain. A bumbling air force pilot that spent most of his military "career" as a Viet Nameese prison bitch.

Here's the schedule for the debates.

First presidential debate Friday, September 26 The University of Mississippi, Oxford, Miss. Jim Lehrer Executive Editor and Anchor, The NewsHour, PBS

Vice presidential debate Thursday, October 2 Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. Gwen Ifill Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour, and Moderator and Managing Editor, Washington Week, PBS

Second presidential debate (town meeting) Tuesday, October 7 Belmont University, Nashville, Tenn. Tom Brokaw Special Correspondent, NBC News

Third presidential debate Wednesday, October 15 Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y. Bob Schieffer CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent, and Host, Face the Nation

McShitstain Is A Jealous Old Man

Some of McCain’s old pals in the Senate are cringing at what they see as his soulless transformation into what he once scorned.

“John’s eaten up with envy,” said one. “His image of himself was always the handsome, celebrity flyboy.

“Now somebody else is the celebrity,” the colleague continued, while John looks in the mirror and sees his face marred by skin cancer and looks at the TV and sees his dashing self-image replaced by visions of William Frawley, with Letterman jokes about his membership in the ham radio club and adventures with wagon trains.

For McCain, being cool meant being a rogue, not a policy wonk; but Obama manages to be a cool College Bowl type, which must irk McCain, who liked to play up his bad-boy cool.

Now the guy in the back of the class is shooting spitballs at the class pet and is coming off as more juvenile than daring.

An angry, jealous old man.

McShitstain-enomics

According to John McShitstain, his idiot economic advisors and the rest of the STUPID republicunts, the recession is only in our minds and we should all quit whinning.

Despite the fact that oil companies like BP Amoco are reporting record profits at the American consumers expense. To put this in perspective, the profit reprted by BP equates to a $95,000 profit PER MINUTE.

Thank the STUPID fucking republicunts for this economic disaster that America finds itself in. If you're even remotely thinking of voting for McShitstain and the same old shit we have had to edure over the last eight years, seek medical help immediately. You are a fucking mental case and need to be highly medicated.

Here is a list of some well established companies, American icons of our economy, that are whinning all the way to the poor house:

• Ann Taylor closing 117 stores nationwide.


• Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherines closing 150 stores nationwide


• Talbots will close all 78 of its kids and men’s stores plus another 22 underperforming stores.


• Gap Inc. closing 85 stores


• Foot Locker to close 140 stores


• Wickes Furniture is going out of business and closing all of its stores. The 37-year-old retailer that targets middle-income customers, filed for bankruptcy protection last month.


• Levitz - the furniture retailer, announced it was going out of business and closing all 76 of its stores in December. The retailer dates back to 1910.


• Home Depot store closings 15 of them amid a slumping US economy and housing market. The move will affect 1,300 employees. It is the first time the world’s largest home improvement store chain has ever closed a flagship store.


• Movie Gallery – video rental company plans to close 400 of 3,500 Movie Gallery and Hollywood Video stores in addition to the 520 locations the video rental chain closed last fall as part of bankruptcy.


• Sprint Nextel - 125 retail locations to close with 4,000 employees following 5,000 layoffs last year.


• Wilsons the Leather Experts – closing 158 stores


• Bombay Company: to close all 384 U.S.-based Bombay Company stores.


• KB Toys closing 356 stores around the United States as part of its bankruptcy reorganization.


• CompUSA (CLOSED).

Still thinking of voting for a STUPID republicunt?

Hang yourself.

America will be better off.

Veterans Against McShitstain

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.

Happy Birthday Mr. President

Birthday wishes go out to Americas next President.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BARACK OBAMA!

USS Forrestal - July 29, 1967

To call John McShitstain a war hero is like calling the "Yugo" a performance automobile.

Fucking Hypocrite

Some Reasons NOT To Vote For McShitstain

I am sick and tired of McCain brushing off every legitimate criticism by invoking the fact that he was a POW.




Being a POW does not excuse you for having a crappy health policy.


Being a POW does not make you a war hero -- for that you have to kill the enemy in a useful way to actually win the war.

And being a POW does not make you an expert on military or foreign policy.

But being a POW DOES make McShitstain nothing but a PRISON BITCH.

• was fifth from the bottom in class rank, 894th out of 899.


• a sub-par flier, with limited patience for studying aviation manuals.


• Crashed his plane FIVE times, before shot down and taken prisoner.


• His role in Forrestal fire.

McCain was physically brave and committed to a military career because of heritage. But is appears that he was fundementally not very smart, not very interested in actually being a good pilot, studying or working to be a good pilot and actually do his best to win the Vietnam war that was allegedly so imporant to win.

He could not be bothered to study hard, stay sober and fight succesfully.

Most of us have heard about his being fifth from the bottom in his academy class rank, 894th out of 899. That is his undergraduate career. That is much worse then George W. Bush was at Yale. Some of it is excused as demerits from bad behavior. But I have not seen anything about his actual academic GPA. And if he was so interested in beating the Soviets or later in winning the Vietnam war maybe he should have studied and worked harder.

Per the Wikipeida entry on the early life and military career of John McCain (retreived 4/17/2008):

McCain was then commissioned an ensign, and spent two and a half years as a naval aviator in training at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida and Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas.[46] He earned a reputation as a party man, as he drove a Corvette, dated an exotic dancer named "Marie the Flame of Florida", spent all his free time on the beach or in a BOQ room turned bar and friendly gambling den, and, as he would later say, "generally misused my good health and youth".

He began as a sub-par flier, with limited patience for studying aviation manuals.

During a practice run in Texas, his engine quit while landing, and his aircraft crashed into Corpus Christi Bay and sank to the bottom. Although momentarily knocked unconscious by the impact, he squeezed out of the cockpit and swam to the surface, escaping without major injuries.

That is crashed on his own #1.

...he had another close call when he and his plane emerged intact from a collision with power lines after flying too low over Spain.

That's #2.

In late 1965, he had his third close call when a flameout in his trainer jet over Norfolk, Virginia led to his ejecting safely before his plane crashed.

And that was #3. That we know of.

One question has always been, how much did McCain's dads position as a senior Admiral have to do with this incompetent not being kicked out of the service?

The above are accepted facts. This next item is questionable but potentially interesting for mainstream follow-up:

Some have suggested (wingers love that phrase) that McCain's had direct involvement in causing the worst non-combat-related disaster in the history of the Navy, the Forrestal fire that killed 134 sailors and injured 62 on July 29, 1967:

Supposedly verified by unamed "senior Naval officer who was assigned to the Naval War College":

McCain and the Forrestal's skipper, Capt. John K. Beling, were warned about the danger of using M-65 1000-lb. bombs manufactured in 1935, which were deemed too dangerous to use during World War II and, later, on B-52 bombers. The fire from the Zuni misfire resulted in the heavy 1000 pounders being knocked loose from the pylons of McCain's A-4, which were only designed to hold 500-pound bombs.' WMR further reported, 'The unstable bombs had a 60-second cook-off threshold in a fire situation and this warning was known to both Beling and McCain prior to the disaster.'

...crewmen aboard the Forrestal have provided additional information about the Forrestal incident. It is believed by many crewmen and those who have investigated the case that McCain deliberately 'wet-started' his A-4E to shake up the guy in the plane behind his A-4. 'Wet-starts', done either deliberately or accidentally, shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft.

In McCain's case, the 'wet-start' apparently 'cooked off' and launched the Zuni rocket from the rear F-4 that touched off the explosions and massive fire. The F-4 pilot was reportedly killed in the conflagration.

'Wet starting' was apparently a common practice among young 'hot-dog' pilots. McCain was quickly transferred to the USS Oriskany (the only Forrestal crewman to be immediately transferred). After the disaster, McCain was shot down over North Vietnam on October 26, 1967.

...informed by knowledgeable sources, including an ex-Navy A-4 pilot, the 'wet-start game' was a common occurrence. However, it is between 'very unlikely' and 'impossible' for the Forrestal 'wet start' to have been accidental. 'Wet starts' were later rendered impossible by automated engine controls."

Now granted, the above and more on this is from, ahem, cough, cough, Wayne Madsen via Portland IndyMedia. But hey, if Ayers is a real issue, then WMR is a source worth at least following up on. There is at least some specificity and details being made in these charges that could be looked into.

Has anybody else looked into this?
Inquiring and enquiring minds want to know.

By the way... when McCain was shot down, was it just routine bad luck, the sad but predictable result of a proven lousy pilot who did not study his manuals, or just maybe (playing the sort of specious psychobble games that should be appreciated by those who waved purple heart band aids against Kerry) he felt guilty over his role in the Forrestal fire.

Now of course, we all know that McCain was a great and mighty war hero once he was a POW.

Or not!

As John Aravosis reminds us on his AmericaBlog

McCain working for the enemy. If a US soldier made propaganda tapes for the enemy (like John McCain did), then went on to run for president as a Democrat, the Republicans would eviscerate that candidate. I want George Stephanopoulos to ask John McCain if he loves America as much as soldiers who didn't make propaganda tapes for the enemy while in captivity. Oh, and in case you think I'm kidding, here are McCain's own words:

"Later, I made a second, feebler attempt at suicide. On the fourth day, I gave up. I signed a confession that "I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pilot. The guards ordered me to record my confession on tape. I refused, and was beaten until I consented."

Well, I'm sure a POW has never been beaten before, so it's totally understandable why McCain betrayed his country during his "hero" years in Vietnam. (Or are we to assume that all American POWs betray their country while in captivity, right?)

Maybe among all those who were POWs there were some others who did not do the confession and betrayal thing?

Since being a POW was his initial entry ticket to polical success (the money of his partner in adultery, drug addict thief with a penchant for plagiarism 2nd wife being his other enabling factor), maybe anybody who was a "better POW" should be promoted to President ahead of McCain?