October 31st 2008
I
t’s a simple, short video with a straightforward message and a powerful close, challenging Obama’s ability to lead our country in this unfriendly world.
What do you suppose it means that over 12 million people have viewed it?
October 31st 2008
E
rica Jong – remember her? – has added her voice to the shrill chorus predicting, and by predicting, promoting, riots in the streets if the American democratic process were to result in someone other than Obama getting elected.
Her interview with an Italian rag, Corriere della Sera, was picked up and translated by blogger Il Foglio, and it’s choice:
“If Obama loses it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me. And it’s not a coincidence that President Bush recalled soldiers from Iraq for Dick Cheney to lead against American citizens in the streets.”
Apparently Jong is militarily ignorant, like the rest of the celebrity left. We won’t need troops from Iraq; we’ve got more than enough troops and National Guard (and civilian militia) handy to put down any insurrection by revolutionary Obama supporters. What is it with these people? They holler for troop withdrawals and go into paranoid conniptions when troops are withdrawn. Positively scary.
But they’re so darn pathetic:
“My friends Ken Follett and Susan Cheever are extremely worried. Naomi Wolf calls me every day. Yesterday, Jane Fonda sent me an email to tell me that she cried all night and can’t cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduces her to a bundle of nerves.”
“My back is also suffering from spasms, so much so that I had to see an acupuncturist and get prescriptions for Valium.”
Oh, poor baby. Somebody give them a government hand … a nice strong one to massage all the tension out of their boo-hoo ailing backs.
Of course the assumption they all make is that the GOP will somehow steal the election.
Hey, Erica! Ever heard of ACORN?
hat-tip: The Observer and Jim
October 31st 2008
Y
ou might think Barack Obama’s sitting pretty with the endorsements of Hamas, Castro, Michael Moore, Galloway, Gaddafi (almost), the House of Saud and the much sought after Donatella Versace nod, but something was missing. Where was al-Qaeda? Why were they taking so long?
Finally, the wait is over, says Reuters:
An al Qaeda leader has called for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to be “humiliated,” without endorsing a party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to an Internet video posting.
“O God, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him,” Abu Yahya al-Libi said at the end of sermon marking the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, in a video posted on the Internet.
Libi, a top al Qaeda commander believed to be living in Afghanistan or Pakistan, called for God’s wrath to be brought against Bush equating him with past tyrants in history.
Barry Glib would be quick to point out that his name is mentioned nowhere in the quote, but how is he going to deny that he’s compared McCain to Bush throughout the campaign? How else to degrade, humiliate and defy Bush and the Republicans - and to make al-Qaeda happy – than to vote for Big O?
October 31st 2008
M
y blog-friend and designer of the new C-SM look Dale (Okie on the Lam) forwarded this video to me, which he produced for a big Prop 8 sponsor:
There is no reason to bring this sort of LGBT sexuality into the kindergarten classroom; it just shows the extremism of LGBT activists, and their unwillingness to conform with long-established societal norms – not about their sexuality, but about the inappropriateness of forcing sex onto children, whether physically, socially or emotionally.
The people who want kindergarteners to deal with “LGBT” are the same people who are behind the fight to defeat Prop 8. Which side do you want to be on?
October 31st 2008
The editorial writers at the Washington Post have completely dispensed with debate. No longer is there a pretense from them that facts are needed to prove their position; no longer are efforts required to rebut the other side. When it comes to Obama, no debate is needed. He wins, the other guy loses. ‘Nuff said.
This time, it’s today’s editorial, none too subtly named An ‘Idiot Wind’ (how nice of them to put quotes around ‘idiot’). It attacks the McCain campaign for discussing the association between Obama and Rashid Khalidi, and the sequestered LA Times tape. Here’s what WaPo has to say about the latter:
To further argue that the Times, which obtained the tape from a source in exchange for a promise not to publicly release it, is trying to hide something is simply ludicrous, as Mr. McCain surely knows.
That’s it. Certainly, WaPo could rightly argue that breaking a promise to a source is a ludicrous proposition, but to say that the tape contains nothing damning even though they’ve never seen it – now that’s ludicrous! It the sort of thing someone covering their ears and screaming “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!” would do.
Hmmm.
And of the questions McCain has raised about Khalidi and Obama?
We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that “I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over.” That’s good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign’s increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.
Now shut up. Your concerns have been settled for you by those who know more than you.
Media Bias 2008 covers pro-Obama media bias. Items are listed from most recent to oldest; the numbering reflects this and is not a ranking. Send Media Bias 2008 examples via “comments”‘ below, or to email2laer [@] yahoo [dot] com.
October 31st 2008
Y
ou can’t make this stuff up. In a less secular day, what happened in Parliament yesterday would have been likened to lightening snuffing out a false prophet. From the UK Register:
Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday – the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.
Despite the snow, despite 2008 being a year without a summer in England, despite the fact that polling conducted even before the current economic crisis and the non-summer shows 60 per cent of Brits now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more than half think Global Warming won’t be as bad “as people say,” despite the fact that it’s gotten steadily cooler for 11 years now, Parliament pushed on, its upper lift stiffened in Churchillian resolve:
In order to combat a projected two degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent.
The bill creates an enormous bureaucratic apparatus for monitoring and reporting, which was expanded at the last minute. Amendments by the Government threw emissions from shipping and aviation into the monitoring program, and also included a revision of the Companies Act (c. 46) “requiring the directors’ report of a company to contain such information as may be specified in the regulations about emissions of greenhouse gases from activities for which the company is responsible” by 2012.
Folks, greenie dreamies aside, you can’t reduce carbon emissions by 85% in 42 years without (1) spending hundreds of billions – you choose, pounds or dollars, it won’t matter, it’ll still be hundreds of billions and (2) savaging what’s left of the British economy. But who cares, chaps? Push on!
The US Senate has Senator James Inhofe, but in the Commons, there wasn’t an out-and-out sceptic to be found. It was 90 minutes before anyone broke the liturgy of virtue. When Peter Lilley, in amazement, asked why there hadn’t been a cost/benefit analysis made of such a major change in policy, he was told to shut up by the Deputy Speaker.
Will America be next? Both candidates profess their allegiance to the global warming god. But McCain’s reversal on offshore drilling during the energy crisis and his selection of Sarah Palin as running mate, hints that he will show more flexibility than the doctrinaire Mr. O.
hat-tip: Jim
October 31st 2008
I
t was a bad week for the media in the Watcher of Weasels’ weekly electronic ballot box of the best of the blogs. The two winners covered the same topic – the extent and the “why” of bias in this campaign – and their takes were very similar. Nonetheless, I voted for them #1 and #2, and that’s how they turned out:
My post, Is A Barack Win Predestined?, which didn’t deal with the media, tied for third place with Colossus of Rhodey’s We’re Tired of It already, which did.
On the non-Council side, things were a bit more wide open, with:
Iowahawk, as usual, is a hoot – this time attacking the “margin of error” in polls. WoC is much too gleeful about the shaky condition of the media for me; still it’s a good economic analysis of what newspapers face. Myself, I don’t want to see them die; I want them to adapt and improve.
For all the winners, see the Watcher, who as is his wont, has added some terrific commentary around the entries.
October 30th 2008
I’ve called AP the All Pro-Obama newswire and the Anti-Palin newswire, but I happily tip my hat to AP today for a little piece it ran called Obama’s Prime Time Ad Skips Over Budget Realities.
The article, by Calvin Woodward, very effectively rebuts these quotes from last night’s 30-minute Obama mis-infomercial:
“That’s why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.”
“I also believe every American has a right to affordable health care.”
“I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost.”
“Here’s what I’ll do. Cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year. Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee that they hire right here in the U.S. over the next two years and eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Help homeowners who are making a good faith effort to pay their mortgages, by freezing foreclosures for 90 days. And just like after 9-11, we’ll provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open.”
Unfortunately (or is it “not surprisingly?”) Woodward did not point out the family in question is now making less than $200,000, instead of the old $250,000 threshold. Who knows what the threshold will be? We have only the word of a guy who lied about campaign funding to guide us.
A hat-tip to Annie for the link. She asked how such a story would run, given AP’s recent history. I think it may be that the media’s doing a lot of last-minute base-covering because their bias has become too open and too frequently criticized by the only group that counts – their peers.
October 30th 2008
P
oor, poor John McCain! He relied on the federal government for his campaign funds, just like he promised he would, and now he’s suffering through abject poverty, unable to feed his poor, hungry campaign with a stead flow of nice, nutritious campaign ads.
Rich, rich Barack Obama! Unlike McCain (and counter to his own promise), he shunned the government hand-out (or is that hand-up?) and entrepreneurally set out to raise his money on his own.
And the money he’s raised! Thanks to a free internet (remember that please, Barack), an extremely free market approach to credit card approvals and a junk food diet of endless ads asking for more bucks like a televangelist, he’s raised hundreds of millions. Lots of it even legal.
So, Barack, isn’t this a perfect opportunity to show us what you mean by saying that it’s good for everyone to spread the wealth around? How about giving a quarter of your money – no make that 39.6% of your money – to John?
Lickitysplit, please. Time’s awastin’.
October 30th 2008
S
hould Barack Obama emerge victorious on Tuesday – or whenever the election is finally settled – this just might turn out to be the most important quote of the election season:
“We’ve got 49 Blue Dogs, maybe 61 after the election,” said Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas. “We don’t need much persuasion. We’ve got the votes.”
Ross and his Blue Dogs represent one side in a Dem leadership split detailed in today’s WSJ, a side that will play the role of the heavy in upcoming Congressional debates.
Ways and Means chair Charlie Wrangle represent another side of the fractious Dem party, the Old Bull liberals. Asked about whether a costly social agenda can still move forward in light of the economy, he told the WSJ:
“For God’s sake, don’t ask me where the money will come from. I’m going to the same place [Secretary Henry] Paulson went.”
Wrangle thinks Obama has to start fast on his biggest, most liberal programs – revolutionary national heath care, high-cost efforts to prematurely rush America off oil, and shamefully undemocratic legislation that would allow unions to organize through Stalinist fear and intimidation rather than by good old American democratic principles.
Then there’s the moderates, voiced by House majority whip, James Clyburn:
“It’s better to let things evolve than to revolve. Revolutions are dangerous,”
Of Clyburn’s position, Rangle said, “he doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s talking about.”
And finally, the swing state governors, who want in on the decision-making as well.
Democratic governors have been pushing for input as well, taking advantage of their positions atop regional vote-delivery machines. “I’m a swing-state governor. I’ve talked to this guy probably more than my own parents,” quipped Colorado’s Bill Ritter, who got Sen. Obama to adopt his “new energy economy” mantra verbatim.
Even if Obama is gifted in bipartisanship – which we have seen no evidence of throughout his minuscule career – it won’t be enough. He’ll have to be quadripartisan just to corral his own party, even before he wanders over to the GOP side. The article describes early efforts of the Dem leadership to come together to plan transition and first term strategies have been tense, with splits emerging.
Wrapping it all up, reporter Jonathan Weisman writes:
Senior Obama advisers say the senator has given no commitments to any of the camps. Without a chief of staff, without a formal policy apparatus to make such decisions, he can only take in the different arguments and await Election Day, they say.
After that, however, he won’t have the luxury to put off decisions: If elected, his budget plan will be due by early February.
And that will be quite a challenge for the junior senator from Illinois who’s biggest decisions thus far in his career have been whether to start his next narcissistic campaign before having the opportunity to gain experience and wisdom from his previous win. And he’s always chosen to rush it, putting his faith in his ability to fool the people. Should he win, he’ll be playing fool the Congress, and it will be a different game indeed.
The Obama administration told us that not only would they be very good at spending unfathomable sums of money, but they’d also be maestros at turning that cash into jobs for a job-hungry America. Like so many White House words, the Big Job Promise is turning out to be nothing more than hype-fuel for the [...]
With Obama winning the presidency by seven percent, we can't blame the media. Their laudatory coverage and refusal to extensively probe into Obama's background and [lack of] experience was at best responsible for five percent of his vote, the pundits tell us. Here is a compilation of over 100 significant instances of pro-Obama/anti-McCain bias during the 2008 campaign.
"Thank you for the Voice of the Victims films. The students really liked it, and it means so much to them to hear real stories and not watch a cheesy drama like so many other videos."
— a high school teacher.
The most powerful film about drugs of choice and choices about drugs.
