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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 3:22 am Post subject: |
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Here's another column on the same theme:
Disdaining elites is neither a coherent system of government nor a strategy for governance. As one political scientist put it, "democracy is ... not a steam bath of popular feelings."
Conservatives were once well aware of this fact. In the early 1960s, writers at William F. Buckley Jr.'s National Review knew that conservatism, like all political movements, needs a head as well as a heart. In a confidential memo, Frank Meyer, the National Review's leading theorist, made distinctions between the "establishment of responsible leadership" and "instinctive" conservatives who followed the call of "know-nothing leaders." A responsible conservative leadership, Meyer said, needed to tame the "vital forces" of the hard-core populist right.
But nearly half a century later, that generation is gone or fading fast, and McCain's campaign choices should make us all wonder who is in charge of America's conservative party now: its heart or its head? It's not clear that anyone on the right has stepped up to become today's "responsible cop of the conservative beat," as one historian described Buckley.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez13-2008oct13,0,263503.column |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#27229397
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/joe-in-the-spotlight/?em
Let's see, Joe the Plumber isn't a plumber, he is a tax deadbeat, and he would get a tax cut under Obama's tax proposal.
Oh, and McCain never vetted Joe before citing him in the last debate.
So what else is new?
I never thought I would see a candidate for President who could make George Bush seem like a genius.
| Quote: |
McCain discovers plumber no ordinary Joe
By: Carrie Budoff Brown and Amie Parnes
October 16, 2008 09:59 PM EST
NEW YORK � John McCain hung his final presidential debate performance on an Ohio plumber who campaign aides never vetted.
A day after making Joseph Wurzelbacher famous, referencing him in the debate almost two dozen times as someone who would pay higher taxes under Barack Obama, McCain learned the fine print Thursday on the plumber�s not-so-tidy personal story: He owes back taxes. He is not a licensed plumber. And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president.
McCain likes to say that he isn�t George W. Bush � and in this case of bungled public relations, it is clear he is not. The famously-disciplined Bush campaign operation would likely have found the perfect anonymous citizen to illustrate a policy proposal, rather than spontaneously wrap itself around an unknown entity with so many asterisks.
While the arc of Wurzelbacher�s breakneck trip through the news cycle � from private citizen to insta-celebrity to political target � offers a curious insight into the political media culture, it also appears to offer a glimpse into the McCain campaign�s on-the-fly decisionmaking style.
A McCain source said Thursday that the campaign read about Wurzelbacher on the Drudge Report, while another campaign aide confirmed that he was not vetted. Senior McCain adviser Matt McDonald told Politico after the debate that Wurzelbacher was not aware that he would become central to the candidates� third and final showdown, although Wurzelbacher told reporters Thursday that the McCain campaign contacted him earlier in the week to ask him to appear with the candidate at a Toledo rally scheduled for Sunday. (He may not make it, now that he's scheduled to be in New York for TV interviews.)
�Joe, if you're watching, I'm sorry,� McCain said Thursday, referring to the press attention that the Ohio man had received, during a taping of the Late Show with David Letterman.
McCain said he has not spoken to Wurzelbacher yet...................... |
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14652.html
I can't wait to see SNL's take.
Hey, Joe. I hear the job of Mr. Clean is open.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBHIqnvmOjI
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OK, Joe the Plumber started off confronting Obama. Then McCain claimed him as a prop.
Odd.
Guess what?
Joe used to live in Alaska. Some people are getting suspicious.
| Quote: |
The star of Wednesday night�s presidential debate used to live in Alaska.
And for once we�re not talking about Gov. Sarah Palin.
Long before he was "Joe the plumber," Joe Wurzelbacher lived in North Pole and Eielson Air Force Base, according to Alaska public records. A family member says Wurzelbacher came to the state in the mid-1990s and stayed about four years � long enough to have the son who can be seen standing next to him in the now famous YouTube clip of Wurzelbacher grilling Sen. Barack Obama about taxes.
Kelly Morrison watched the debate with her husband in Midtown Anchorage. As the candidates sparred over someone named Joe the plumber, her husband kept telling Morrison that it had to be the Joe they know.
Morrison�s sister, Jennifer, is Wurzelbacher�s ex-wife. They�ve known him for years. At one point, Joe worked as Morrison�s plumber when they both lived in Arizona.
Then someone on TV said Joe�s last name.
�I�m like, 'That�s Joe!� And (my husband) said, 'I�ve been trying to tell you that the whole time,� Morrison said.
Alaska records show Wurzelbacher listed a North Pole address in 1992 and 1993, and Eielson Air Force Base address in �94 and �95. He applied for hunting permits, owned an old Ford and a new Dodge, and paid a $76 fine in Fairbanks court for speeding.
It was unclear Thursday afternoon whether Wurzelbacher registered to vote while living in Alaska, and if so with which party, Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai wrote in an e-mail.
Wurzelbacher�s son was born in the Fairbanks area in 1995, Morrison said.
�Jennifer had called up to Joe to tell him that she was in labor and Joe made it down the stairs just in time, his baby was delivered on the wooden floor in their home,� Morrison said.
�That was a huge thing for us ... We joked with them and said, 'OK, you did it the Alaskan way,� � said Morrison, who was living Outside at the time. She later married an Alaskan and moved here herself.
�I met (Joe) when he was working for Roto-Rooter,� said her husband John.
Morrison said Wurzelbacher served in the Air Force and that as far as she knows, he and her sister never met Gov. Sarah Palin, who is now Sen. John McCain�s running mate.
Obama and McCain argued again and again over which candidate would be a better president for �Joe the plumber� during the debate. All those shout-outs made Joe a media superstar overnight.
Even Wurzelbachers who have nothing to do with Joe started fielding questions.
Doug Wurzelbacher, a California musher who lived in Palin�s own stomping grounds � the Mat-Su area � in 2001 and 2002, said his phone started ringing Thursday from friends, and some strangers.
They wanted to know: Where the two related?
Meanwhile, bloggers discovered the Wurzelbacher name in sled-dog race results online � and that the musher was from Palin�s part of Alaska � and questions began flying about a possible Doug-and-Joe connection and whether Joe, who confronted Obama in front of television cameras in Ohio, was a plant.
�There�s something smelly about the plumbing in this story,� someone wrote on the Daily Kos.
Doug said he�s never met Palin and that while his last name is a rare one, he�d never heard of Joe before the debate.
�Somewhere along the line, I got to be related to him, but I don�t know him,� Doug said
Morrison first met Joe Wurzelbacher in Ohio in the late �80s, when he was dating her sister.
�She said, 'I�m going to bring my boyfriend home and I think he�s the one. You�re my older sister and I want you to tell me what you think and here comes this big guy walking through the front door,� Morrison said.
The Wurzelbachers married and moved to Fairbanks, then left Alaska about four years later to be closer to family, she said. Jennifer now lives in Michigan and declined to be interviewed. The couple�s son, Joey, lives with his father, Morrison said.
Morrison said she lasted talked to Wurzelbacher maybe two years ago. �He wanted to actually come up here and do something hunting and fishing.� |
http://community.adn.com/adn/node/132881 |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:47 pm Post subject: |
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Death threat, vandalism hit ACORN after accusations
By GREG GORDON
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON -- The furor over the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now's national voter registration drive exploded with new controversies Friday, including a call by Barack Obama for an independent prosecutor, a Supreme Court ruling over voter access and the disclosure of a death threat against an ACORN worker.
What remains unclear is whether the presidential campaigns of Democrat Obama and Republican John McCain will reach a truce over voter access to the polls by Election Day or whether their legal and rhetorical battles will persist to the finish line - or beyond.
Republicans allege that ACORN is engaged in rampant voter fraud, but they've offered no proof of such a systematic effort. The GOP does have evidence that some of the group's 13,000 canvassers submitted fraudulent applications, but ACORN says it alerted authorities to most of the phony forms.
Democrats counter that the GOP is trying to whip up fears of voter fraud so it can knock students and low-income minorities off the voter rolls to enhance McCain's chances of victory.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled an attempt by Republicans to challenge the validity of 200,000 voter registrations in Ohio, saying that the party lacked the standing to sue.... |
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/730941.html
Desperation, n. See GOP. |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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There they go again!
Did you know that northern Virginia is not part of the "real Virginia?" And that's why they don't support McCain up there?
| Quote: |
McCain Adviser Suggests NoVa Not 'Real Virginia'
By Matthew Mosk and Christopher Twarowski
Sen. John McCain headlined a boisterous outdoor rally in Woodbridge, Va., today, while his campaign took heat for suggesting the populous region was not part of "real Virginia."
McCain senior adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer, a self-described "proud resident of Oakton, Virginia," said on MSNBC that "Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved into Northern Virginia, and that's really what you see there. But the rest of the state, real Virginia, if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain's message."
Program host Kevin Corke asked Pfotenhauer if she wanted to retract the comment, prompting her to reply, "I mean 'real Virginia' because Northern Virginia is where I've always been, but 'real Virginia' I take to be the -- this part of the state that is more Southern in nature, if you will. Northern Virginia is really metro D.C."
Virginia Democrats took umbrage at her description, pointing out that McCain and his wife own a condominium in the northern part of the state and that the McCain campaign's national headquarters is also located there.
"On the same day John McCain campaigned in Northern Virginia, a senior adviser to his campaign decided to disparage the region -- the very area where McCain's campaign national headquarters and one of his eight homes are located," said the state's former lieutenant governor, Donald S. Beyer Jr., now the owner of a number of automobile dealerships in the Northern Virginia suburbs.
"Once again it is clear that the McCain campaign is more concerned with distracting and dividing Virginia voters than making the case that the McCain plan to extend the Bush economic policies for another four years is good for middle class families in Virginia." |
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/?hpid=artslot
Tell it to the Electoral College, Nancy.
Every state has an urban and rural component. Is New York the real New York, and New York City not?
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And check out the photo of the Obama rally in Missouri, vs. this story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/18/AR2008101801510.html?hpid=topnews
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And then there's the pre-emptive complaint letter against a New York Times article complaining about it being unfair... sent before the article was published.
| Quote: |
McCain Campaign Launches Pre-emptive Strike on NYT
By Matthew Mosk
CONCORD, N.C. -- Sen. John McCain's campaign reacted with fury early this morning to a New York Times profile of the senator's wife Cindy.
A campaign spokesman called the article a "vicious attack" and released a copy of a letter the campaign's lawyer sent to New York Times executive editor Bill Keller.
In the letter, sent before the article was published, McCain lawyer John Dowd described the reporting effort as an example of the "cruel hit pieces designed to injure people that only the worst rag would investigate and publish."
"I know you and your colleagues are always preaching about raising the level of civil discourse in our political campaigns," Dowd wrote. "I think taking some your own medicine is in order here.".... |
Here's the article. Doesn't look vicious to me:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/us/politics/18cindy.html?pagewanted=all
It seems the one with rabies is John Dowd. |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:50 am Post subject: |
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A former supporter and friend of John McCain speaks out:
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McCain's attacks fuel dangerous hatred
By Frank Schaeffer
October 10, 2008
John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.
At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, "Kill him!" At one of your rallies, someone called out, "Terrorist!" Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At your campaign event Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., the crowd was seething with hatred for the Democratic nominee - an attitude encouraged in speeches there by you, your running mate, your wife and the local Republican chairman.
Shame!
John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.
You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.
John McCain, you are no fool, and you understand the depths of hatred that surround the issue of race in this country. You also know that, post- 9/11, to call someone a friend of a terrorist is a very serious matter. You also know we are a bitterly divided country on many other issues. You know that, sadly, in America, violence is always just a moment away. You know that there are plenty of crazy people out there.
Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs.
John McCain, you're walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out "Terrorist" or "Kill him," history will hold you responsible for all that follows.
John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.
Change the atmosphere of your campaign. Talk about the issues at hand. Make your case. But stop stirring up the lunatic fringe of haters, or risk suffering the judgment of history and the loathing of the American people - forever.
We will hold you responsible.
---
Frank Schaeffer is the author of "Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back." His e-mail is [email protected]. |
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.mccain10oct10,0,7557571.story
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Schaeffer |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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GOP Pulling Its Ads From Bachmann's Race, Media Buyers Say
Five days after Rep. Michele Bachmann went on a McCarthy-esque rant suggesting Barack Obama was unpatriotic and urging the major newspapers of the country to investigate anti-American sentiment in Congress, the national Republican political parties are running for cover.
Two sources aware of ad buys in Minnesota say that the National Republican Congressional Committee is pulling its media purchases from Bachmann's race. If true, it is a remarkable fall for a congresswoman who, until recently, seemed relatively safe in her predominantly conservative district. The race had become closer in recent days -- the NRCC had transferred funds from Rep. Erik Paulsen (MN-03) to Bachmann a little over a week ago.
In the days following her appearance on Hardball, however, Bachmann has watched as her challenger, El Tinklenberg raised more than a million dollars off her incendiary remarks. That surge in fundraising put Bachmann's re-election in a far less certain position. Bachmann tried to stem the bleeding by telling the press she was sorry for her remarks. But with the national party now apparently pulling the plug, the situation has gone from bad to worse. |
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/22/gop-pulling-its-ads-from_n_136941.html?view=print
Who knew? Even Republicans have their limits. As in, don't accuse Congress (including Republicans) of being anti-American?
And who knew it wasn't still 1950? |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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| That's a positive move by the RNC. Her comments were over the top and destructive. |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:09 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know about the rest of you, but this has been a jaw dropping campaign. Literally.
My jaw just fell open in total astonishment when I heard the latest installment of McCain campaign blunders.
Truly, truth is stranger than fiction. If someone had made the Presidential Campaign of 2008 as a movie 10 years ago, it would have been viewed as a s poof, as in This is Spinal Tap.
People would say, How could anyone be this stupid?
And, god, I hope they make this campaign into a movie one day!
OK, so what happened?
After McCain spent a week ranting about ACORN and voter fraud, he suddenly dropped the subject.
Why?
Watch this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#27313459
This McCain "campaign" has been nothing but a series of exploding cigar jokes.
/ / /
Got that?
No? Read this:
| Quote: |
Man used by state GOP faces charges
By Hans Laetz
Correspondent
Monday, October 20, 2008
The leader of the state Republican party's controversial voter registration effort was jailed for 19 hours Sunday on two counts each of vote fraud and perjury, and the state Republican party spokesman called it a political arrest timed to embarrass the GOP.
Agents from the Secretary of State's Office and Ontario police arrested Mark Anthony Jacoby, 25, shortly before midnight Saturday at a hotel near LA/Ontario International Airport. After 19 hours in jail, he was freed on $50,000 bail, a state GOP spokesman said.
Jacoby runs Young Political Majors, a group that has angered Ventura County Democratic activists and some independent voters over a registration drive that has had numerous cases of people discovering that they had been surreptitiously reregistered as Republicans after signing petitions against sex criminals.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen said Jacoby violated state laws by registering to vote at the address of a childhood home in Los Angeles although he no longer lived there.
The four felony charges were filed Oct. 3 by the Public Integrity Unit of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, based on investigations by the Secretary of State's Office.
Bowen is a Democrat, and the timing of the arrests, one day before the deadline for registering to vote in California, was viewed as proof of a political motive, state GOP spokesman Hector Barajas said.
"She is just trying to give cover to her friends in ACORN and in the Obama campaign," Barajas said from his Sacramento office. "Coming on the eve of the election, this sure is convenient for her own party."
Barajas said Jacoby is "a 25-year-old kid living out of a suitcase at an airport, and he used his parents' address for his own voter registration."
Democratic spokesman Bob Mulholland laughed at that, citing complaints filed with the Ventura County District Attorney's Office by several local voters who alleged illegal voter registration switches by Jacoby and Young Political Majors.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," Mulholland said from Sacramento.
After The Star reported last month that dozens of Ventura County residents had their party registration changed to Republican against their will, allegations came in from other areas of Southern California about similar "slamming" of voters by Young Political Majors workers....
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http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/oct/20/arrest-in-vote-fraud-case/
So, it appears the real voter fraud is being committed by Republicans, who are involuntarily switching voter registrations to Republican, and who are throwing in the garbage Democratic Party registrations. In many states. And this is being investigated in many states.
The Republicans are making America look like a banana republic to the rest of the world:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=voter+fraud+republicans&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=
For example, from Britain:
| Quote: |
The Republican voter fraud hoax
Donald Duck and the Dallas Cowboys won't steal the election for Obama. Acorn's only crime is registering Democratic voters
Brad Friedman
guardian.co.uk, Monday October 13 2008 20.30 BST
Barack Obama and the Democrats are stealing the election. Massive voter fraud is being carried out, even as we speak, by their henchmen, known by the innocuous sounding Association for Community Organisations for Reform Now, or Acorn. Clever bastards.
The only problem? Despite the screaming wall-to-wall coverage of "Democratic voter fraud in 11 swing states" as seen on Fox News and even the once-respectable CNN, none of it's true. None of it.
In just the last week, we've had a phoney stunt raid in swing state Nevada (where Acorn had been cooperating with officials for months, concerning problem canvassers they'd long ago fired); a Republican election official in swing state Missouri tell Fox News that she's being beseiged with fraudulent registration forms from Acorn (in a county where they've not done any registration work since August); a Republican sheriff in swing state Ohio, who, the very next day, suddenly requested the names and addresses of hundreds of early voters (with evidence of exactly zero wrong doing, but lots of Democratic-leaning college student in the particular county, and John McCain's state campaign chair as a partner in the investigation); and a screaming front page headline in Rupert Murdoch's New York Post about a guy who claims he was somehow tricked by Acorn into registering 72 times (but read the article closely to note he says he registered at the same address each time, which, even if true, would allow him - you guessed it - precisely one legal vote.)
It's an old Republican scam, but it's never been carried out with more zeal than this year. The Republicans have been putting so much time, money and resources into the propaganda leading up to this over the last four years, we should have expected no less.
As luck would have it, the Democrats have a man who, as an attorney years ago, actually had the temerity to join the US department of justice in representing Acorn in a successful lawsuit, forcing the state of Illinois to follow the law by allowing citizens to register to vote at the department of motor vehicles. What a scoundrel.
That, of course, was before the department of justice, under George Bush's corrupt command, would itself become politicised by the very Republicans so desperate to keep low-income voters from voting, that they were willing to fire their own US attorneys for failing to bring phoney charges of voter fraud in key swing states like Nevada and Missouri.
So what are the crimes that have caused all the Sturm und Drang on US television and talk radio, and in several otherwise respectable newspapers and even by the McCain campaign itself?
The only actual crime here is that Acorn managed to register some 1.3m low-income (read: Democratic-leaning) voters over the past two years. The rest is, pretty much, just made up.
But in the bloody and desperate trenches of the Republican war on democracy, that's more than enough to kick in a last minute surge of lies that may - with the help of a compliant and lazy corporate US media - wreak enough havoc, scare enough voters, confuse enough people and plant enough seeds to call an Obama victory into doubt on November 4.
If you can't win it, steal it. If you can't steal it, claim the other guy stole it. If you can't claim the other guy stole it (yet), say they're about to and then kick up smoke that maybe someone will believe you. (Heckuva job, CNN.)
Here are the facts. Acorn verifies the legitimacy of every registration its canvassers collect. If they can't authenticate the registration, or it's incomplete or questionable in other ways, they flag that form as problematic ("fraudulent", "incomplete", et cetera). They then hand in all registration forms, even the problematic ones, to elections officials, as they are required to do by law. In almost every case where you've heard about fraud by Acorn, it's because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that's been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers. Most officials who run to the media screaming "Acorn is committing fraud" know all of the above but don't bother to share those facts with the media they've run to. None of this is about voter fraud. None of it. Where any fraud has occurred, it's voter registration fraud and has resulted in exactly zero fraudulent votes.
You'll hear that Donald Duck, Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse and (new this year) the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team have all had fraudulent registrations submitted in their names. That's true. And we know this, why? Because Acorn told officials about it when they followed the law and turned in those registrations, flagged as fraudulent.
What you won't hear is that federal law requires anybody who does not register to vote in person at the county office to show an ID when they go to vote the first time. So, unless Donald Duck shows up with his ID, he won't be voting this November. You needn't worry, no matter how much even John McCain himself cynically and dishonourably tries to mislead you.
If it quacks like a duck, in this case, it's likely another Republican Acorn voter fraud lie. They haul it out every two years.
Just days before the 2004 presidential election, rightwing whack job Michelle Malkin claimed that Acorn was registering terrorists to vote in swing state Ohio. Problem was, that was a lie.
In 2006, again just days before the election, the new US attorney in swing state Missouri (recently appointed, since the one before him refused to bring such charges), filed voter fraud indictments against Acorn workers in the state. Problem was, bringing election-related indictments that close to an election was a violation of the department of justice's own written policy. And Acorn had nothing to do with it, other than turning in the employees to officials.
Getting the picture? It's a hoax. All of it.
But it's been an effective one, as it's served to distract from very real concerns about tens of thousands of voters who have been illegally purged from the voting rolls in dozens of states, as the New York Times reported in a remarkable front page investigative story. That story followed a report the week before from CBS News detailing still more wholesale purges of voting rolls in some 20 states.
That will be the November surprise, when thousands, if not millions show up to vote only to find they are no longer welcome to do so and are forced to vote on a "provisional ballot" which may or may not be counted.
These real concerns of election fraud, such as voting roll purges, electronic voting machines that don't work and so much more that actually matters, have been obscured by the smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand of the Republican party's phoney Acorn voter fraud charade.
And where they can, they'll parlay it all into new photo ID restrictions at the polls (knowing full well that some 20m, largely Democratic-leaning voters don't own the type of ID they'd need to jump over that next Republican hurdle.)
Yet, with all of the unsubstantiated, wholly bogus claims of voter fraud being carried out by Democrats, there remains at least one case of absolutely ironclad, documented, yet still-unprosecuted case of voter fraud that, for some reason, Republicans don't much like to talk about.
We can only wonder why.
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And here are some domestic news stories:
http://www.klas-tv.com/global/story.asp?s=2421595
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/14/politics/main649380.shtml
/ / /
hypocrite
Main Entry:hyp�o�crite
Pronunciation:*hi-p*-*krit
Function:noun
Etymology:Middle English ypocrite, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin hypocrita, from Greek hypokrit*s actor, hypocrite, from hypokrinesthai
Date:13th century
1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
�hypocrite adjective
- see, John McCain |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 10:16 pm Post subject: |
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With the fiasco that is the McCain campaign, the Republicans are reaping the whirlwind. Over the years they have unleashed forces to attack the "liberal Democrats" that have turned against them. They are the forces of hate, distortion, unreason.
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Civil War on the Right
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 24, 2008; A19
Conservatives are at each other's throats, and here's what's revealing about how divided they are: The critics of John McCain and the critics of Sarah Palin represent entirely different camps....
For years, many of the elite conservatives were happy to harvest the votes of devout Christians and gun owners by waging a phony class war against "liberal elitists" and "leftist intellectuals." Suddenly, the conservative writers are discovering that the very anti-intellectualism their side courted and encouraged has begun to consume their movement.
The cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, Robert Nisbet and William F. Buckley Jr. is now in the hands of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity -- and Sarah Palin. Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda, ideas by slogans, learned manifestoes by direct-mail hit pieces.... |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302869.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
What is the future of the Republican Party?
It looks to me that Palin and her Pentacostal buddies own it now. |
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The Hammer
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Location: Ullungdo 37.5 N, 130.9 E, altitude : 223 m
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| Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 5:57 am Post subject: |
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| What is the future of the Republican Party? |
They can eat crow at reeducation camps for idiots that I'll be helping to setup in 2 out of 4 of the key battle ground states. |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:40 am Post subject: |
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I'm starting to have second thoughts as I watch the stock market continue to bomb amid a meltdown of the global economy.
Hey, if everything's going to collapse anyway, why not elect the Republicans and let them take the blame, er, full credit. It would be a very entertaining four years watching McCain and Palin wreck what little furniture is left in the house we call America.
Vote McCain-Palin. They will finish the job George Bush has begun. |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2008 4:38 am Post subject: |
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The end is near.
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Blame game: GOP forms circular firing squad
By: Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen and John F. Harris
October 24, 2008 01:58 PM EST
With despair rising even among many of John McCain�s own advisers, influential Republicans inside and outside his campaign are engaged in an intense round of blame-casting and rear-covering � much of it virtually conceding that an Election Day rout is likely.
A McCain interview published Thursday in The Washington Times sparked the latest and most nasty round of finger-pointing, with senior GOP hands close to President Bush and top congressional aides denouncing the candidate for what they said was an unfocused message and poorly executed campaign.
McCain told the Times that the administration �let things get completely out of hand� through eight years of bad decisions about Iraq, global warming, and big spending.
The candidate�s strategists in recent days have become increasingly vocal in interviews and conference calls about what they call unfair news media coverage and Barack Obama�s wide financial advantage � both complaints laying down a post-election storyline for why their own efforts proved ineffectual.
These public comments offer a whiff of an increasingly acrid behind-the-scenes GOP meltdown � a blame game played out through not-for-attribution comments to reporters that operatives know will find their way into circulation.
Top Republican officials have let it be known they are distressed about McCain�s organization. Coordination between the McCain campaign and Republican National Committee, always uneven, is now nearly dysfunctional, with little high-level contact and intelligence-sharing between the two.
�There is no communication,� lamented one top Republican. �It drives you crazy.�
At his Northern Virginia headquarters, some McCain aides are already speaking of the campaign in the past tense. Morale, even among some of the heartiest and most loyal staffers, has plummeted. And many past and current McCain advisers are warring with each other over who led the candidate astray.
One well-connected Republican in the private sector was shocked to get calls and resumes in the past few days from what he said were senior McCain aides � a breach of custom for even the worst-off campaigns.
�It�s not an extraordinarily happy place to be right now,� said one senior McCain aide. �I�m not gonna lie. It�s just unfortunate.�.... |
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=2BF967A2-18FE-70B2-A86E8E3437D6E24D
What a pathetic excuse for a campaign. Given how close it was at points, it appears that McCain actually could have won this, if he had run a dignified, intelligent campaign. But he did everything wrong.
Everything. |
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manlyboy
Joined: 01 Aug 2004
Location: Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
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| Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2008 10:15 am Post subject: |
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Dear leftards,
Please repeat after me:
I am an unhappy and bitter individual. I am filled with envy and resentment. I project this into others and persecute them for it. Obama cannot cure me of this. It is nobody else's fault but mine. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2008 11:14 am Post subject: |
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| manlyboy wrote: |
Dear leftards,
Please repeat after me:
I am an unhappy and bitter individual. I am filled with envy and resentment. I project this into others and persecute them for it. Obama cannot cure me of this. It is nobody else's fault but mine. |
Perhaps what you say, manlyboy, is true and more. But this is no defense of McCain. |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:53 am Post subject: |
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Great column by Timothy Egan:
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October 26, 2008
Op-Extra Columnist
The Party of Yesterday
By TIMOTHY EGAN
SEATTLE
Two years ago, a list of the nation�s brainiest cities was put together from Census Bureau reports � that is, cities with the highest percentage of college graduates, which is not the same as smart, of course.
These are vibrant, prosperous places where a knowledge economy and cool things to do after hours attract people from all over the country. Among the top 10, only two of those metro areas � Raleigh, N.C., and Lexington, Ky. � voted Republican in the 2004 presidential election.
This year, all 10 are likely to go Democratic. What�s more, with Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia now trending blue, Republicans stand to lose the nation�s 10 best-educated states as well.
It would be easy to say these places are not the real America, in the peculiar us-and-them parlance of Sarah Palin. It�s easy to say because Republicans have been insinuating for years now that some of the brightest, most productive communities in the United States are fake American � a tactic that dates to Newt Gingrich�s reign in the capitol.
Brainy cities have low divorce rates, low crime, high job creation, ethnic diversity and creative capitalism. They�re places like Pittsburgh, with its top-notch universities; Albuquerque, with its surging Latino middle class; and Denver, with its outdoor-loving young people. They grow good people in the smart cities.
But in the politically suicidal greenhouse that Republicans have constructed for themselves, these cities are not welcome. They are disparaged as nests of latte-sipping weenies, alt-lifestyle types and �other� Americans, somehow inauthentic.
If that�s what Republicans want, they are doomed to be the party of yesterday....
That will not happen this year. Polls show McCain is losing 20 percent of self-described moderate Republicans. And new registration figures and other polls indicate that Obama will likely win such iconic exurban centers as Washoe County, Nev., Loudoun County, Va., and Wake County, N.C.
But in the kind of pattern that has held true since McCain went over to the stupid side, his brother recently referred to suburban northern Virginia as �communist country� and a top adviser, Nancy Pfotenhauer, said it was not �real Virginia.�... |
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/opinion/26egan.html?em
You have to wonder what's going to happen to the Republican Party.
In many countries, a party with a reputation this smirched would fade away, to be replaced by another party. That's what we need in the U.S. But it's not going to happen.
Why? Because there are also state Republican Parties, and Republican officials at the local level.
So, what will happen?
Frankly, I think moderate Republicans would be wise to leave the party, either to become Democrats or independents.
Short of that, there would need to be a massive turnout of moderates on the precinct level to take the party back from the evangelical wingnuts. And I mean massive. Those churches could turn out every parishioner, if needed, to keep control of the Republican Party.
Instead, any moderates who show up will get walked on.
The Republican Party is not going to break any time soon from its evangelical romance. |
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