This is an interesting quote:

“When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or umm, or maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, ‘Man, that doesn’t do us any good.’ I mean, work harder. Prove yourself to an even greater degree that you’re capable. That you’re going to be the best candidate.”

This was stated last March, when Hillary was having difficulty with the media.

And now Sarah Palin isn’t addressing the media.  She is hiding from their questions.  Here’s a piece from ABCNews: Palin Media Avoidance Watch: Day 9 — McCain Camp Says She Won’t Do Interviews Until It Knows She’ll Be Treated with “Deference”

Rick Davis, campaign manager for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just told Fox News Channel’s Chris Wallace that McCain running mate Gov. Sarah Palin won’t subject herself to any tough questions from reporters “until the point in time when she’ll be treated with respect and deference.”

WHAT?   Deference??? You are insane?  This weekend, McCain AND Obama AND Biden are all facing the media directly.   Palin ran back home to Alaska, probably to clean up her personal messes and to try and memorize her line.   They did throw a bone and allow Charles Gibson to GO TO ALASKA to interview her.  I can almost guarantee the questions will be requested ahead of time.   This should be LOADS of fun watching her spout the same lies she spoke at the convention (follow the links immediately under the video clip to see a better detailed analysis of her lies.  Loads and loads of shit.   (And yes, all politicians stretch the truth, but the Republicans are active liars and don’t think anyone knows about Google!)

From the Palin Media Avoidance Watch article

So when will she subject herself to questions?

“When we think it’s time and when she feels comfortable doing it,” Davis said, praising a Fox News Channel profile of Palin that ran last night.

Why is she scared of answering questions? Wallace asked.

“She’s not scared to answer questions,” Davis said, “but you know what? We run our campaign not the news media.”

Now, see … this is just wrong.   She does not deserve any special deference.  She doesn’t need to get “comfortable” facing the media.   It’s not about playing games and running a campaign your own way.  The announcement was made, she accepted the nomination as vice president, and NOW SHE HAS TO MAKE HERSELF AVAILABLE TO THE MEDIA.   We, the voting public of America have the right to know who they are asking us to vote for or against.    Why are the other candidates all out doing stump speeches and fielding questions, but Palin gets a free pass to go home and get comfortable?

She has no foreign policy experience, and has admitted not knowing much about Iraq.  WHY THE FUCK NOT?  How do you run for a major public office over the entire country and NOT KNOW about the BIGGEST FUCK-UP OF YOUR PREDECESSOR?  How the hell do you even consider accepting a nomination and not even know what the job of the Vice President is, or what problems you”ll be expected to clean up?

Most of us have never even heard of this woman, and we need to know ALL about her.   It is impossible (and wrong) to expect anyone to vote a Republican ticket for an Unknown.  When you run for President (or Vice President) you need to be ready on Day One (of the announcement, not the final election).

The Republicans are running a HUGE DOUBLE-STANDARD campaign.  Nancy Pfotenhauer (McCain’s senior policy adviser) rags all over Hillary (back in Nov. 2007), and says it’s wrong for Hillary to play the victim card (victim of the media) because “that’s not what we want in a President”.  (And that’s true, no political candidate can set him/herself up and then claim they are being victimized by the media, whose job it is to dig up EVERY detail of that candidate’s life, professional record, and private scandals).   But then this same woman now turns around and says that the media is picking on Palin and belittling the accomplishments of women.   HUH???  yeah, you can hear her comments in the video clip below.

But wait….

Y’member the quote up at the top?   Here, I’ll put it again:

“When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or umm, or maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, ‘Man, that doesn’t do us any good.’ I mean, work harder. Prove yourself to an even greater degree that you’re capable. That you’re going to be the best candidate.”

That’s also in this video clip.  Guess what?  It’s Sarah Palin saying it, last March!   WTF?

Yeah… can you say “Hypocrite”???

Last evening, after dark, I was watching “Saving Private Ryan” on TNT (Am I the only one who wells up and almost cries over that movie, no matter how many times I see it?).

Anyway, so I’m lounging here in my normal state of undress.   Neighbor knocks on the door, asking me to help lift his motorcycle (eep!), as it had apparently been pushed over in his absence.   Obviously, I slipped on the closest pair of shorts before opening the door (duh!), find out what he wants and go out to help (again, duh!).

That’s one heavy huge honkin’ bike he’s got, okay, and I give it my all, which is admittedly not much, especially in my knees.  I feel my foot slip a bit in the process and I’m actually lying on it as I lift my end of it, but together we get it upright.  I have no problem doing my best to help a neighbor in need.  That’s what being a neighbor is about.

Once it is upright, we speculate how it could have fallen (”Surely I would have heard something like that if it just fell over, but I heard nothing”), we said our good-nights, and I came back to watch the movie.

And within minutes I knew I’d been wounded somehow in the process.

No, no … the knees are none the worse for wear, and my back is same as normal.

No, it’s worse than that.

Following the heavy rains of last week, there’s been a major problem with mosquitoes.   And his bike is kept at the end of the concrete pad, next to the wet grassy dips where rains collect and breed the little fuckers.    (Are you following along here?)

So here I am, in my breezy summer walking shorts, no unders, squatting down to heft the bike (remember: “bend at the knees”) while my feet are firmly planted over a field of those little fuckers.  TWO of them managed to invade private territory, and now I am sporting a double-bit knot of itchiness on the side of my you-know-what.  Two round bite marks about 1/8 inch apart, looks more like a snake bite than mosquito bites, but whatever it is, it ain’t nothing nice!

Yes, feel sorry for me.   Mosquito bites itch.  And form little sores.  And swell up a bit.  Bad enough having one on your foot and having to wear socks over it.   Bad enough under a collar where it is sweated on all day, as you try to nonchalantly go about your business.  But it’s absolutely horrid having a double-bite on your best friend as it suddenly decides that while I’m in the grocery store  it’s suddenly a marvelous time to rebel against the sweat of walking to the market, to remind me it is there and that it itches, and it will not stop itching until I do something about it.

Sheer agony.

You want to cross your legs and do the famous pee-pee dance  and wee-wee wiggle from toddler years.  You want to rip off your clothes and dip the problem in a vat of ice cream to make the itching stop.   You want to do ANYthing to calm the burning sensation.   But no.   You’re in a grocery store.   And not just a grocery store, but one filled with all those nice dressed-up, easily offended church lady-type people.

One of the great advantages to walking with a cane — if you suddenly have to shift about for comfort, most people assume it is somehow related to the cane, and not an issue with your best friend.

So… with THAT image now firmly implanted in your head, my work here is done, and I will go into the afternoon’s chores.

OH HEY!    On the way home from market I passed a local yard sale, and snagged a small area rug for the living room.  It’s probably just cheap nylon, but if you could see the stains left from previous tenants, you’d appreciate that even this is better than the stains:

And it was only $12.50.     It looks sort of ripply but that’s because it hasn’t settled into place yet.  But it’s clean (top AND bottom!) and will suffice just fine.

Okay… now I go back to work.   See ya!

This is an open letter from someone who knows John McCain better than most voters who think they will vote for him. I found it at: http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/08/25/why-i-won%E2%80%99t-vote-for-john-mccain/ but here’s the entire thing, with my own bolding for emphasis:

Why I Won’t Vote for John McCain

August 25, 2008

by Phillip Butler, PhD –

John McCain is a long-time acquaintance of mine that goes way back to our time together at the U.S. Naval Academy and as Prisoners of War in Vietnam. He is a man I respect and admire in some ways. But there are a number of reasons why I won’t vote for him for President of the United States.

When I was a Plebe (4th classman, or freshman) at the Naval Academy in 1957-58, I was assigned to the 17th Company for my four years there. In those days we had about 3,600 midshipmen spread among 24 companies, thus about 150 midshipmen to a company. As fortune would have it, John, a First Classman (senior), and his roommate lived directly across the hall from me and my two roommates. Believe me when I say that back then I would never in a million or more years have dreamed that the crazy guy across the hall would someday be a senator and candidate for president!

John was a wild man. He was funny, with a quick wit, and he was intelligent. But he was intent on breaking every USNA regulation in our 4-inch thick USNA Regulations book. And I believe he must have come as close to his goal as any midshipman who ever attended the Academy. I could tell many midshipman stories about John that year and he unbelievably managed to graduate though he spent the majority of his first class year on restriction for the stuff he did get caught doing. In fact, he barely managed to graduate, standing fifth from the bottom of his 800-man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates.

People often ask if I was a Prisoner of War with John McCain. My answer is always “No, John McCain was a POW with me.” The reason is I was there for 8 years and John got there 2 ½ years later, so he was a POW for 5 ½ years. And we have our own seniority system, based on time as a POW.

John’s treatment as a POW:

1) Was he tortured for 5 years? No. He was subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first 2 years, from September of 1967 to September of 1969. After September 1969, the Vietnamese stopped the torture and gave us increased food and rudimentary health care. Several hundred of us were captured much earlier. I got there April 20, 1965, so my bad treatment period lasted 4 1/2 years. President Ho Chi Minh died on September 9, 1969, and the new regime that replaced him and his policies was more pragmatic. They realized we were worth a lot as bargaining chips if we were alive. And they were right because eventually Americans gave up on the war and agreed to trade our POWs for their country. A damn good trade in my opinion! But my point here is that John allows the media to make him out to be THE hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true, to further his political goals.

2) John was badly injured when he was shot down. Both arms were broken and he had other wounds from his ejection. Unfortunately, this was often the case; new POW’s arriving with broken bones and serious combat injuries. Many died from their wounds. Medical care was nonexistent to rudimentary. Relief from pain was almost never given and often the wounds were used as an available way to torture the POW. Because John’s father was the Naval Commander in the Pacific theater, he was exploited with TV interviews while wounded. These film clips have now been widely seen. But it must be known that many POW’s suffered similarly, not just John. And many were similarly exploited for political propaganda.

3) John was offered, and refused, “early release.” Many of us were given this offer. It meant speaking out against your country and lying about your treatment to the press. You had to “admit” that the U.S. was criminal and that our treatment was “lenient and humane.” So I, like numerous others, refused the offer. This was obviously something none of us could accept. Besides, we were bound by our service regulations, Geneva Conventions, and loyalties to refuse early release until all the POW’s were released, with the sick and wounded going first.

4) John was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for heroism and wounds in combat. This heroism has been played up in the press and in his various political campaigns. But it should be known that there were approximately 660 military POW’s in Vietnam. Among all of us, decorations awarded have recently been totaled as follows: Medals of Honor – 8, Service Crosses – 42, Silver Stars – 590, Bronze Stars – 958 and Purple Hearts – 1,249. John certainly performed courageously and well. But it must be remembered that he was one hero among many - not uniquely so as his campaigns would have people believe. Among the POWs John wasn’t special. He was just one of the guys.

John McCain served his time as a POW with great courage, loyalty, and tenacity. More that 600 of us did the same. After our repatriation a census showed that 95% of us had been tortured at least once. The Vietnamese were quite democratic about it. There were many heroes in North Vietnam. I saw heroism every day there. And we motivated each other to endure and succeed far beyond what any of us thought we had in ourselves. Succeeding as a POW is a group sport, not an individual one. We all supported and encouraged each other to survive and succeed. John knows that. He was not an individual POW hero. He was a POW who surmounted the odds with the help of many comrades, as all of us did.

I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60s and 70s. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John’s age (72) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for four or more years.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.

It is also disappointing to see him take on and support Bush’s war in Iraq, even stating we might be there for another 100 years. For me, John represents the entrenched and bankrupt policies of Washington-as-usual. The past 7 years have proven to be disastrous for our country. And I believe John’s views on war, foreign policy, economics, environment, health care, education, national infrastructure and other important areas are much the same as those of the Bush administration.

I’m disappointed to see John represent himself politically in ways that are not accurate. He is not a moderate or maverick Republican. On some issues he is a maverick. But his voting record is far to the right. I fear for his nominations to our Supreme Court, and the consequent continuing loss of individual freedoms, especially regarding moral and religious issues. John is not a religious person, but he has taken every opportunity to ally himself with some really obnoxious and crazy fundamentalist minister. I was also disappointed to see him cozy up to Bush because I know he dislikes that man. He disingenuously and famously put his arm around the guy, even after Bush had intensely disrespected him with lies and slander. So on these and many other instances, I don’t see that John is the “straight talk express” he markets himself to be.

Senator John Sidney McCain III is a remarkable man who has made enormous personal achievements. And he is a man that I am proud to call a fellow POW who “Returned With Honor.” That’s our POW motto. But since many of you keep asking what I think of him, I’ve decided to write it out. In short, I think John Sidney McCain III is a good man, but not someone I will vote for in the upcoming election to be our President of the United States.

by Phillip Butler, PhD

Doctor Phillip Butler is a 1961 graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a former light-attack carrier pilot. In 1965 he was shot down over North Vietnam where he spent eight years as a prisoner of war. He is a highly decorated combat veteran who was awarded two Silver Stars, two Legion of Merits, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Heart medals. After his repatriation in 1973 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at San Diego and became a Navy Organizational Effectiveness consultant. He completed his Navy career in 1981 as a professor of management at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is now a peace and justice activist with Veterans for Peace.

If this doesn’t make you think twice about voting for this guy … well, you probably aren’t thinking much anyway.

This is from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow:

I just came across this interesting, and utterly relevant quote:

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” — On Liberty, John Stuart Mill

So true, so true.  Whether it is banning books in Alaska or telling someone on a blog to stop publishing an opinion, it is wrong.   Censorship is wrong, as is the denial of a free press, which includes blogs if I’m understanding it correctly.

If y’all don’t like MY opinions, or don’t like the opinions I link to, go make your own blog and do your own damn linking and research.

Every person is entitled to form an opinion; nobody is entitled to form a fiction and call it a fact.

Even worse than publishing/expressing fiction as fact is the sin of silencing detractors and preventing the truth from being equally published/expressed.   Fortunately, we now have videos and tapes and all sorts of other ways to check facts, so that even when people blurt out shit and speed on by in the hopes nobody will notice, there are always a myriad of people scrutinizing every phrase, especially during political speeches.  That is why I am confident that all the lies spoken by all the speakers at the RNC will eventually (hopefully sooner than later) will come out.

What the FUCK (again!)

I just plucked this off from DailyKos:

Sarah Palin used AK tax dollars to fund dominionist churches

More insanity, eh?   Clearly the woman doesn’t know a damn thing about the separation of church and state.  You don’t use taxpayer money to fund churches.  At all.  Ever.

But even worse, it isn’t just “any” church, but a Dominionist program run by the Assemblies of God — which coincidentally I was licensed in back in the mid-70’s before all this Dominionist shit took over and spread like a cancer through the denomination.

Sarah Palin is NOT a good woman, NOT a good Christian, and NOT a good candidate for any public office.  She’s a known (proven) liar stretcher-of-the-truth.

This is interesting… Sarah is rushing back home to Alaska and WON’T BE AVAILABLE TO THE MEDIA FOR TWO WEEKS.   According to a GOP Strategist it’s because she “might make a mistake”.  Well, no shit.  NOBODY outside of Alaska has even heard of her.  She doesn’t know what she’s doing anyway, already fucked up Wasilla and then the state, she has no viable experience, and was selected under pressure from the Religious Right.  Reports continue to flow out of Alaska regarding her foul racist mouth, and nasty religious agenda, and there’s some other shit that’s going to hit the fan shortly, I’m pretty sure. (Y’all heard about her husband’s ex-partner trying to get his divorce papers sealed, right?  She’s not the kind of person they should hold up as the proper moral mommy.  No she’s not.  Because the judge denied the emergency petition to seal that guy’s divorce records, I have a good hunch what will be discovered in public records!)

She’s going back home to crack some heads — like the people who would dare have an opinion that she didn’t put in their mouths!!!   And cover up some other dirt (good luck with that, lady).  And get briefed by the GOP on all the “right answers”.  THEY KNOW SHE ISN’T READY to be vice president, and they know she is NOT ready to step up if anything happens to McCain.  She will be a puppet for all those guys pulling the strings behind the scenes.

I will be amazed if the McCain/Palin ticket wins in this next election, but if they do get in, it will mean another four years (at least) of some seriously BAD problems.

Why am I ragging on Palin, when it is McCain who is running for President?   Because there’s a good chance he won’t last the full four years.  He is in bad health.   The idea of having this particular woman pretending to be President scares the shit out of a LOT of people in this country.   And rightly so.  “Caribou Barbie” is a wonderful term.

What the fuck?    This video pair needs to be broadcast all over the media, where Sarah Palin actually refers to the oil pipeline as “God’s Will”.  WTF?   In the video she’s addressing “Masters Comission” students — young people in the church being trained specifically to go out and evangelize non-Christians (which is a wicked, evil thing to do anyway–it is always wrong to initiate contact for the purpose of converting others to a different religion; it is offensive, and the exact opposite of what this country is about) and she links their nefarious program as part of her role as Governor.

Check it out.  This woman is dangerous in SOOO many ways, and people are finally starting to speak up about her.   But do you think they’ll allow the media to show this stuff the way they blasted Rev. Wright’s comments and his link to Obama?   Probably not.  So it’s up to normal people to spread this around.

this is too good to pass up.  This is the next Vice President of the United States. 

Whoop-de-fucking-dooooo….  So he’s a POW.  It means NOTHING.  He uses that the way Giuliani uses 9-11.  Every time he speaks it’s like “<noun> <verb>  POW”.

But does he really CARE about our military?  Of course not.   He has consistently voted AGAINST improving services and medical care for veterans.   Gosh… how fucking rude.   Playing up his own (artificial) greatness, but not doing a damn thing for the military personnel now.

Even though much of the military historically leans Republican, it is clear that THIS TIME, the military vote is NOT a sure thing.

Donations from military members to presidential campaigns are running 6-to-1 for OBAMA!   Our service personnel are not stupid.  They know they are fighting in a war that we have no business being in.  They know the President does not give a fiddler’s flying fuck about them (remember–Iraq is about OIL, not democracy, not terrorists, not anything else… just OIL).

And, as noted this evening on Keith Olberman, the RNC did not allow many military personnel to speak, and some were actually removed from the convention for speaking a dissenting view point.  Hmph.

Here’s a couple links showing how ordinary military people feel about it:

Deployed Troops Donate to Obama 6-1 Over McCain

Obama leads McCain in military donations, 6-1

I just got this in email:

Friend –

John McCain and the Republicans had all week to make their case — and they didn’t do it.

The whole Republican convention went by without offering a single idea about how to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.

People noticed. In the last 24 hours, more people donated to this campaign for the first time than ever before. Thank you for responding so strongly.

Barack is making clear what this election should be about. At a campaign stop in Pennsylvania yesterday, he spoke out about exactly what we didn’t hear at the Republican convention.

Watch the video and make a donation of $5 or more today to make sure Barack’s message of change is heard loud and clear:

https://donate.barackobama.com/realissues1

We learned just this morning that unemployment jumped to its highest rate in five years, and our economy lost 605,000 jobs this year alone — at a time when John McCain believes that the fundamentals of our economy are “strong.”

John McCain can talk all he wants about change, but he has voted with George W. Bush more than 90 percent of the time, and Americans aren’t buying it.

Here are a few of the responses we received from voters who watched the Republican convention:

“This is one Republican for Obama that knows 100% now that I made the right choice and will in November vote for Obama-Biden.” — Bev from Georgia

“Republicans like Palin, Giuliani, and Romney can engage in red-meat partisan vitriol all they want, right out of the Karl Rove playbook, but this isn’t 2000 or 2004. Americans now have seen the full impact of GOP policies on their pocketbook.” — Rick from Colorado

“What the Republicans displayed … is more of the same old thing — unproductive politics. I hope and pray that the American voters will see through this and realize that we need a different mindset and approach if we are ever going to get things done in Washington.” — Patricia from Kansas

Watch Barack’s response to the Republican convention, and join these folks in supporting real solutions and making sure Americans far and wide know what’s at stake:

https://donate.barackobama.com/realissues1

Thanks for everything you’re doing,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Donate: https://donate.barackobama.com/realissues1

———————————————————————
Paid for by Obama for America
This email was sent to: ray@raywhiting.com
To unsubscribe, go to: http://my.barackobama.com/unsubscribe

If I had the money you can be sure I would be donating to the Obama campaign.  If I had the time I’d be i their offices doing what I could to make sure every voter knew why it is important to vote for Obama and why the McCain/Palin ticket is a ticket to continued misery for this country.  We’re already in a recession, and McCain wants to make sure it is a full blown Depression with only the rich surviving.

I was surprised to learn about this new blog, called Librarians Against Palin.  At first, I thought it said Libertarians, but no, it was not a typo.  Librarians.  The nice men and women who run libraries.

Now why, you might ask, would Librarians care?  Well, you see… libraries are established as repositories of information and learning, a place for the exercise and implementation of our constitutionally guaranteed free press.  This is important, because it has come to light that Sarah Palin, when she became the mayor of Wasilla, AK, she asked the librarian “How do I go about removing books from the library?”   and “Would you have a problem removing books if asked?”

She claims (now) that it was just a rhetorical question, but when the librarian in question refused, she was given a letter of dismissal just a couple months later, for (allegedly) “not supporting” Palin.  WTF???   A librarian is not a political position and it doesn’t matter if she supported Palin or not.  It’s not like a librarian was supposed to be at the mayor’s beck-and-call like someone in the mayor’s office or staff.  But the librarian stood up to Palin regarding pulling books from a public library, and Palin followed up with trying to fire the woman.   Fortunately, the city residents spoke up and Palin backed down (which is probably why Palin is so adamant and abusive toward “community organizers, eh?).

But really, that’s not quite the whole problem.   The fact that Palin would even ask the question about how to have books pulled from the shelves speaks to her motives and character (black as night).  Because she is strongly anti-gay, anti-science/evolution, anti-education, anti-women’s freedom of choice, and anti-progress, along with being a Dominionist and far-right fundamentalist Christian, it is not hard to figure out which kinds of books she’d want to pull — pretty much anything that enlightens people and gives them the information they need to take authority in their own lives and become self-determining adults in this world.

Anyway, the Librarians Against Palin blog continues to build up its case from people who actually know and/or knew Palin.

And I found an interesting clip of Karl Rove’s comments about a potential running mate for Obama, when he included VA Gov. Kaine as a consideration.   Rove made light of this guy and call him a political choice rather than a choice for someone who could actually do the job.   And

But then after slamming Kaine for his experience, he turns around and praises Palin who is an absolute NOBODY by comparison and has far, FAR less experience than Kaine.   What a fucking (typical) hypocrite!

If this country is actually stupid enough to vote McCain into office, I will seriously consider moving to Canada or UK, or some place, ANY place where people have not relinquished their brains to right-wing extremists.

Bush has made this country a laughingstock around the world because of his dumb-ass ignorance and stupid policies.    A few weeks ago he was chastising Russia for going into Georgia, commenting about Russia’s bullying tactics, but that’s exactly what Bush did to Iraq — he started this fucked up war for NO REASON, and actively QUIT looking for bid Laden and stopped actually pursuing terrorists.  Even before 9-11, his first cabinet meeting, he put Iraq at the top of his agenda for his administration, and ignored EVERY evidence that didn’t follow his agenda.   We need to get out of Iraq, get out of the Middle East, and quit farting around where we do not belong.  All this pretense about “national security” is utter bullshit.   The so-called “Patriot Act” is bullshit.  Nearly everything he has done is bullshit.  WHY DOES ANYBODY WANT FOUR MORE YEARS????   It makes no sense.   But everything Bush has done, McCain will simply repeat and make it even worse.

this is just awful…. Palin’s handlers (?) don’t want the media or others actually asking questions.   They expect everyone to just let her ramble on and on about how wonderful she thinks she herself is.

Check it out.   (and watch the video clip there, too)

No. No. No.

And that woman saying “I’ve never seen the media do this to any other family”.  Oh fuck that lie in the face, bitch!   Practically EVERY political candidate and all the presidents have been scrutinized all along the way.    Why should Palin be excused from scrutiny?   Why should the media be denied access to her?  Why would she not want to HEAR the questions and be held accountable for knowing, on her own, without speech-writers and campaign handlers, about real foreign policy or our economics or anything else?   This is bullshit.

Palin HAS TO Do one-on-one intereviews so we can see if she can actually do it, because as vice president she will have to.  And every other candidate has always had to meet with the media and face the hard questions that people want to know about.

FUCK Alaskan Oil — at least in the long-term.   We need to get off of oil altogether, but McCain apparently doesn’t have much of a plan for that, does he?

Here’s Obama’s plan:

Obama’s comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:

• Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump
• Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
• Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
• Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars — cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon — on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
• Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

We have to find AND FUND new greener energy sources. Renewable sources.  McCain wants oil.

I am SO SICK of hearing about McCain being “change”.   What the FUCKING FUCK are you idiots thinking?  He is nothing more than George W. Bush’s Third Term, and he has voted with and support Bush 90-95% of the time.  McCain is nothing new and will not bring real change that this country needs.  He and his party continue to reject education (esp. science) for American students.   That is a sure way to destroy America.   When we have to hire engineers and doctors and other advanced science specialists from China, India, parts of Africa, and all over Europe, it’s a problem.    (There’s nothing inherently wrong with recruiting and hiring from outside — they are brilliant and contribute a LOT — but when it is because we don’t have and fail to nurture and cultivate our own brains, it is WRONG and reveals a much larger problem.)

And he’s right. The Democrats talked about what needs to be done. The Republicans have been talking about the Democrats!

Here’s Barack’s response:

Sarah Palin had a lot of fun mocking “community organizers” in her speech (which I didn’t bother to watch but I’ve heard plenty about).  apparently “community organizers” don’t actually DO anything.  Uh-huh.

Today, it’s reported that John McCain cancelled an appearance with Habitat for Humanity for whatever reason.  Heaven forbid he should bother trying to make nice-nice with one of the largest community organizers in the country!   (by the way, there’s a WONDERFUL video clip attached to that article — worth seeing.)

And because the GOP is so lacking in awareness, here is a pictorial history of other notable community organizers.

It seems like nearly every day, the GOP continues to shoot itself in the foot.  What a pity.

TalktoAction has this latest article about the wingnuts

(TTA is another resource keeping an eye on the religious right and especially the dominionists)

Theocrats to Pray for McCain’s Death

Basically they are saying, “Let’s elect McCain so God will kill him and open the door for Palin to take her rightful destiny as God’s chosen leader.”

Now, I ask you… how fucked up is this to being using impreccatory prayer in the middle of a political race?

Here’s a little piece, quoted in this article and taken from a piece originally talking about praying destruction on radical Islam:

What is Impreccatory Prayer?

It is a prayer asking God to crush a clear enemy of His, an enemy which is an aggressive adversary of freedom and peace loving people.

Uhhh….    We love peace, so let’s ask God to kill and destroy the people who don’t agree with us.   That is some seriously fucked up theology, y’know?  These people are insane, and they obviously have no clue what freedom, or peace, or liberty is about.  Doesn’t matter if you’re talking about Islam or McCain — invoking God to rain destruction on your enemy is just NOT the way to win friends and influence people.

Here’s another interesting link along the same vein:

Reconstructionists Pray for McCain’s Death (it’s another of the scienceblogs, up in Pharyngula’s cyberhood, this one hosted by Ed Brayton).

It’s some scary shit going on out there.  Hang on, it might be a bumpy ride.

to my previous post regarding why we can’t afford McCain, Susan publicly commented:

Not everyone wants change. I plan on being rich one day and I don’t want to pay more taxes to take care of dumbass people won’t get off their butts and take care of themselves.

Everyone is entitled to their hopes and dreams, and everyone can have an opinion.   But this statement reflects not only a deplorable (and shameful) lack of social conscience, but an embarrassing lack of education on the issue.

No one will deny that there are, in fact, people who take advantage of government hand-outs.  But the “professional poor’ of this country are actually a very small percentage of those on government assistance.   Increasingly, companies are shutting down or shipping jobs overseas for tax breaks, leaving hundreds or even thousands unemployed in bunches in one community at a time unable to get equivalent income-paying jobs in other places, and many are fighting to get minimum wage jobs that don’t actually support them.  If they could find better-paying jobs, most of them would.  They want to work, but the jobs to support them have been literally given away to other countries so that the wealthy company owners get the tax breaks and the works they fucked over get fucked over again.  This is morally wrong.

I think people with such negative and ignorant opinions need to go volunteer at some of the agencies trying to serve these people — meet the people, hear their stories and how they actually got into such a position.  I’ve met them.   In fact, I have BEEN them.

Shortly after I was divorced, I had custody of my children.   I was able to get a job that, at that time, was very good — it paid $8.50 before taxes.   We were living at my brother’s house because my income wouldn’t cover rent, expenses, AND day care, which the best I could find was charging $8.00 per hour for my four children, slightly less when the two older ones were in school.   Even with child support I wasn’t meeting basic expenses (along with paying down some post-divorce bills), and only occasionally was I able to contribute to the household food.   I don’t remember if I was paying part of the utility bills or what.

The point is that I was doing the right thing (working at the best job I could get), trying to keep my kids in a safe home, and juggling everything I could.  All I needed was a little bit extra to fill in the gaps.  I went to the county welfare office to see about food stamps or whatever other assistance I could get.  I was told to my face that if I were a different race and/or different gender, I could get all sorts of help, but because I was a white male, it didn’t matter that I was single with custody of four children, there was nothing they could do to help me.

So on Christmas Day 1983 I had to give up custody of my children to their mother’s parents because I could not afford them, and I could not get any assistance for even a small portion to fill the gap.   Attitudes like the one expressed above are the sorts of attitudes that hurts thousands of families every day.  People doing the best they can in any given situation are absolutely NOT lazy dumbasses.    It’s easy to sit back and say “well they should do this or that”, but not everyone can instantly do those things.  Getting in a hard situation takes time and money to get out of those things.   People who don’t have and can’t get medical insurance get sick all the time.   I heard on the news just last week that one of the biggest reasons people are declaring bankruptcy these days is because of a serious illness and the huge medical bills.    You don’t have a heart attack without insurance, and then just get out of bed next week and go find a plum job to instantly get out of debt.  Life doesn’t work like that, and people  with negative ignorant ideas need to get a dose of reality and get a taste of poverty imposed on them through no fault of their own.

Someone posted an interested comment on one of the forums:  “If you want to get rich like a Republican, you have to vote Democrat.”   The reason is that historically, EVERYone benefitted better during Democratic administrations.   This article shows the figures, but the bottom line is that, while the “professional poor” will always be taken care of, no matter who is in office, the working poor and low-income families have a better increase in family income, and a better opportunity for rising into independence and self-sufficiency during Democratic administrations.   This isn’t future promises, but historical fact.

There will always be some rich folks, and some poor folks, and some folks in the middle.  McCain believe our economy is just fine, while 95% of us are hurting in this country.   How can it be “fine”?  McCain wants to cut taxes to the richest of the rich, while doing NOTHING for the rest of the country.  The old “trickle-down economics” does not work — the rich get richer and the middle class becomes poor.  How can anybody run for President and say with a straight face he wants to “work for America”?   I am part of America and no Republican president has done a damn thing to help me or anyone else I know.

Obama’s economic plan addresses ALL the people of the country.  And history supports his plan.  The article I linked to above clearly shows why a Republican presidency is consistently BAD for America, and closes with this paragraph:

The two Great Partisan Divides combine to suggest that, if history is a guide, an Obama victory in November would lead to faster economic growth with less inequality, while a McCain victory would lead to slower economic growth with more inequality. Which part of the Obama menu don’t you like?

Amen.    Either you LIKE seeing a greater disparity between the wealthy and the poor, with no middle class, or you LIKE slower economic growth for the country.      More importantly, the inequality is leveled out under Democratic presidents by getting people OUT of poverty and into self-sufficiency a whole lot better than under a Republican president.   Voting for a Republican president will more likely lead toward a greater number of people needing assistance and hurting to keep their families together.  Just look at the historical pattern.

A vote for McCain is a vote to keep me (and millions like me) struggling to get by.  I have to take it personally because I’m struggling as a result of the current economic situation — not enough people can afford to buy my yarns, largely thanks to Bush’s piss-poor job.  Several times a week I hear from people who want to buy, but can’t because of lost jobs and other situations they didn’t personally create.

McCain claims to be for the American Veteran.  He’s a liar.  He’s not a hero, in the real sense of the word.  His actual voting record AGAINST veterans says a lot more about his character than his constantly trotting out his POW status.

Here’s just one article about this aspect of his disqualification as a Presidential candidate:  McCain: ‘I Received The Highest Award From Literally Every Veterans Organization In America’

There is NOTHING in McCain’s record that would recommend him as a leader; it would just be another four years of Bush.   His whole party has begun copying the Obama-Biden campaign.  Have you noticed that they’ve even stolen Obama’s “Change you can believe in” message?    Laura Bush said this about McCain — he’s a change we can believe in.   Laura’s got balls.   Especially because McCain is NOT about change at all.  He wants to keep the tax cuts for the rich.   He has consistently voted AGAINST raising minimum wage to help families survive. I can’t understand why ANY lower or middle class families would want McCain.

Another consideration:  it is possible that some of the Supreme Court Justices will need to be replaced during the next four years.    We cannot risk having yet another right-wing extremist in the White House making those kind of appointments to stack the deck of justice against liberty.

Everyday Americans have always prospered and done better under a Democratic President, and nearly always suffered under Republican Presidents.  Republicans want to line the pockets of the most wealthy, while imposing conditions to keep the poor where they are.

Sarah Palin’s 17 year old daughter is unwed and pregnant.  Gosh, I wonder how that could have happened?  Oh yeah, I know … her mother wouldn’t fund medically accurate sex education but only wants “abstinence only” education.  Uh-huh…  how’s that working for you?

Oh yeah. and just this year she did a line-item funding slash for <*gasp*> helping unwed teen mothers. (link includes the page itself with her annotation cutting funds to help unwed mothers through a nationally known program (part of the Covenant House programs) to assist mothers with up to 18 months of shelter and training to become self-sufficient.   She didn’t totally eliminate funding, but her personal hand in reducing funding is a clear indication of her nasty attitude about unwed pregnant teens.

from the link above:

Earlier today the Associated Press reported that Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, opposed funding to prevent teen pregnancies, a position that Palin also took as governor. “The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support,” she wrote in a 2006 questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates.

Why?   This does not make any sense.  WHY are people so resistant to actually EDUCATING woman about sex?   Education is the BEST PREVENTIVE AVAILABLE, short of sterilizing girls at puberty.  Not all girls (or boys) will be abstinent, no matter how much you preach at them.  It just isn’t going to happen.  But if you don’t educate them about the FACTS of life, and how their bodies work, they will continue the lies heard on every school playground:  “don’t worry, you can’t get pregnant the first time.”   “It’s okay, you can’t get pregnant if we do it standing up.” and all sorts of other nonsense.

Adding to the insanity — the cost (usually to the state) for medical services to an unwed pregnant teen would more than cover the education required to prevent dozens of pregnancies.  Education is ALWAYS cheaper than ignorance.  Always.  Why do they not get this?    Oh yeah, I remember… “The Lord will take care of us.”   HA!   Not a chance in hell, lady.   These kind of people would rather keep their females ignorant and pregnant, and that’s a darn shame, and when the girls end up pregnant anyway, they’re either thrown out on the sidewalk, or shamed into even worse situations, or forced to make even more drastic choices.  And the parents blame society and those wicked secularists.

It’s totally fucked up.