And I’m going to make a point of remembering the name Ashley Todd.

(CNN) — A Republican campaign worker who told police she was assaulted by a man angered by a John McCain sticker on her car admitted she made up the report, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, assistant police chief said Friday.

Ashley Todd, 20, of College Park, Texas, will be charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor, and may face more charges, said police spokeswoman Diane Richard at a news conference.

“This has wasted so much time. … It’s just a lot of wasted man hours,” Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant said at the same briefing.

The woman told investigators a man approached her Wednesday night at an ATM in Pittsburgh’s East End, put a blade to her neck and demanded money, Richard said.

…
Todd originally told police a man “punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground, and he continued to punch and kick her while threatening to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter,” according to a police statement.

The woman also told police her attacker “called her a lot of names and stated that ‘You are going to be a Barack supporter,’ at which time she states he sat on her chest, pinning both her hands down with his knees, and scratched into her face a backward letter ‘B’ on the right side of her face using what she believed to be a very dull knife.”
…
“She is stating that she was in her vehicle driving around, and she came up with this idea,” she said. “She said she has prior mental problems and doesn’t know how the backward letter ‘B’ got on her face.”
…
Richard said the woman had described her alleged attacker as an African-American, 6 feet 4 inches tall with a medium build and short dark hair, wearing dark clothing and shiny shoes.

Nice.

Yes, this was a disturbed woman, but how many more disturbed people - some violent, some gun owners - have been driven beyond the edge by the McCain/Palin rhetoric?

This, and everything that follows, is the responsibility - and crime - of the GOP and John McCain.

If only all 6′4″ black men could sue for slander.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Seal of the RNC

Politico is reporting that the RNC paid for the Alaska Disasta’s $150,000 wardrobe since August.  This is raising legal questions as normally items that are personal in nature cannot be purchased with campaign funds.

Seems to me that since Cindy McCain grossed over $4.1 million last year (and over $6 million in 2006), John should have asked her to pick up this minor expenditure.  After all it is only about 3-4% of one year of her income.   A small price to pay for having a well dressed beauty queen at his side.  And they could have had such fun shopping together (Cindy and Sarah that is).

Cindy McCain

Never mind the legal issues regarding these expenditures, do you think all those good Americans who contributed to the RNC like how their money is being spent?

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 25: Caribou Barbie

This just has to be a final stake in a disastrous campaign.  Stick a fork in her.  Sarah Quaylin will now fade into a potatoe memory or become a newswoman for Fox News.

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Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Pot, meet kettle (and yes, the kettle is black.)

The first-lady-in-waiting, last week:

Cindy McCain lashed out at Barack Obama Tuesday, telling a Tennessee newspaper the Illinois senator has waged the “dirtiest campaign in American history.”

Really, Cindy? Because I haven’t seen anything coming out of any Democratic Party across these United States that can hold a candle to this:

The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women’s group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken…

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps — instead of dollar bills like other presidents…

The group’s president, Diane Fedele, said … she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

“It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don’t want to go into it any further,” Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn’t my attempt.”

No, if she wanted to offend people she would have sent it to non-Republicans, because this sort of thing doesn’t offend Republicans at all:

OBAMA: I mean, look, if we want to talk about Congressman Lewis, who is an American hero, he, unprompted by my campaign, without my campaign’s awareness, made a statement that he was troubled with what he was hearing at some of the rallies that your running mate was holding, in which all the Republican reports indicated were shouting, when my name came up, things like “terrorist” and “kill him,” and that you’re running mate didn’t mention, didn’t stop, didn’t say “Hold on a second, that’s kind of out of line.”

And I think Congressman Lewis’ point was that we have to be careful about how we deal with our supporters.
…
MCCAIN: Let me just say categorically I’m proud of the people that come to our rallies. Whenever you get a large rally of 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people, you’re going to have some fringe peoples. You know that. And I’ve — and we’ve always said that that’s not appropriate.

But to somehow say that group of young women who said “Military wives for McCain” are somehow saying anything derogatory about you, but anything — and those veterans that wear those hats that say “World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq,” I’m not going to stand for people saying that the people that come to my rallies are anything but the most dedicated, patriotic men and women that are in this nation and they’re great citizens.

So the people that go to Obama rallies are something other than the most dedicated, patriotic men and women that are in this nation, right?

Because how could they be patriotic if they’re willing to vote for That One?

Maybe that’s what Cindy really meant by “dirtiest campaign”: in her white, “Christian” Republican eyes, a black candidate can’t do anything but track dirt onto the great and glorious path to the White House.

And Noah said, Cursed be Ham; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren…

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At October 17, 2008, me wrote:

  i got this in an email today and thought i'd share. sorry if its too sappy for some but its a nice change.

  imagine

  The year is 2016. We glance at the television one morning and see

  Obama having another of his many press conferences. He has now been in

  office for almost 8 years.

  It hasn't been perfect, but things are way better than when he took office in January of 2009. You notice that his hair has whitened and he still has that winning smile and that take charge/positive energy that he had when he was campaigning way back in 2008.

  You remember back to how concerned you were about whether or not he would win in 2008 and you feel deeply contented that he has been safely in office for such a long time.

  He and Congress have done much to address global warming, health care, development of alternative energy sources and a variety of other important matters to the country and the planet. You feel deep gratitude for the past eight years and how things have unfolded.

  See it...

  Feel it...

  breathe it....

  Pass it on.

  Lets stop fighting against McCain and Palin, and start working "for"

  Obama-Biden. Lets stop driving ourselves crazy with all of the

  outrageous mind upsetting details about them and start remembering all of the wonderful reasons we want Obama.

  THE CHALLENGE: take 30 seconds right now. Close your eyes and imagine exactly what our country will feel like with President Obama. Imagine how good it will feel. Imagine whatever it is about him that you desire. Imagine the pride. Imagine the diplomacy. Imagine the peace. Imagine the wind mills and the clean cars. Imagine the citizen groups. Imagine the earth being healed and revitalized. Imagine being very proud of your country and its leader. Imagine whatever it is that draws you to support Obama. Imagine what your life will look like.

  30 seconds. Do it several times a day. We can shift and change the vibration of this country with positive visions just like this. It's

  only 30 seconds a few times a day.

  YES WE CAN!!!

  "....stay at the center of the circle and let all things take their course...."

  Lao Tzu

John McCain is very lucky that I am not Michelle Obama. Politics isn’t pinochle, but the metric tons of flyblown pigshit McCain piled on that debate table last night, just daring Obama to comment on the stench, was truly disgusting. If I were the spouse of a man treated with such punk disrespect in front on an audience of tens of millions, I’m not sure McCain would be able to swallow solid food this morning, what with his nuts being lodged in his throat and all.

The only coherence McCain had last night was on his ACORN and Joe the Plumber talking points. Moving beyond his attacks on Obama, McCain made no sense at all:

• No litmus test for Supreme Court justices, but if they agree with Roe v. Wade they’re unqualified?

• Get rid of bad teachers but bring soldiers back from Iraq and plunk them down in classrooms all over the country without teacher certification (or PTSD screening)?

• Shouts of “kill him” and “traitor” at McCain/Palin rallies can’t be attributed to the GOP nominee, but an impassioned statement by John Lewis - who has more right that most to be concerned by such racist fervor, and was not speaking for the Obama campaign - must be repudiated?

• And McCain can demand for the trillionth time that Obama explain yet again his non-relationship with William Ayres, but a substantive ad critiquing McCain’s healthcare plan is a “negative attack”?

Obviously this shriveled old douchebag has nothing left to use (and nothing to lose, at this point). While I’m not convinced McCain was ever truly honorable, he would have at least been remembered that way if he’d been graceful and generous in the coming defeat.

But the truth is, he’s a mean, petulant, defensive bastard with a sense of entitlement even bigger than Cindy’s daddy complex - and now the whole country knows it.

Maybe there is some justice in this world after all.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

I’d very much like to give him a piece of my mind.

I was born on Long Island, just a few train stops from Hofstra University. If all you know of Long Island comes from F. Scott Fitzgerald (or Paris Hilton), that strip of expensive real estate may seem like a giant McMansion tract. But when I was born in Garden City in 1965, Long Island was home to the kind of skilled blue-collar workers that used to be the meat of the middle class in this country. Small, neat homes on 40′x100′ lots in neighborhoods clustered around the 1920s answer to the strip mall: a Main Street of mom & pop butcher shops, pharmacies, hair salons, and family-owned gas station-garages.

John McCain has been instrumental in not only destroying those kind of good, skilled, middle-class jobs, but also in the deregulation that has made Long Island and every other near-in New York City suburb completely unaffordable for those making working-class or even middle-class incomes at jobs in the City that are now rapidly disappearing.

And now, at the tail end of a month of economic turbulence not seen since my grandparents were first getting their little piece of the American dream in a sweet little brick bungalow in Garden City, with its niche on the landing for the Virgin Mary and the bottle of Lourdes Holy Water (which I once took a sip of in a fit of 5-year-old mischievous curiosity - sorry, Mum), John McCain comes to Long Island to “whip” Barack Obama not with cogent plans to get us disentangled from Iraq or this economic mess, or deal with health care or unemployment.

This is what John McCain brings to the table: an anti-war activist whose crimes - never prosecuted, by the way - are 40 years in the past, and a Mickey Mouse voter registration form.

Today in Portland, 1,000 Freightliner employees, white-collar number crunchers and blue-collar truckbuilders alike, learned that parent-company Daimler will be moving their jobs to Mexico in 2010 - thanks, John McCain, to NAFTA and all the other free-trade garbage you have unquestioningly supported during your Senate tenure. You also supported tax breaks for corporations like Daimler that moved jobs out of the country. Now, not only will one more manufacturing plant shut its doors, but all of the businesses around Freightliner that depended on those workers for their livelihood - restaurants, shops, barbers - will lose more than half their customer base, and may close, too.

Do you regret the damage that your rampant free-traderism, tax-cutting and deregulation has done to the middle class in this country?

Not at all. Your economic plan: more of the same, with a poisonous cherry on top - more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, reducing capital gains on investment income to just 7.5%.

And as you eviscerate the middle class in this country, how do you explain it to those who you have most hurt, the ones who come to your rallies hoping you are the one to make America great again, to make them feel like the strongest people in the strongest nation on earth? Do you offer them new green economy jobs, or better education for their kids, or relief from the crushing mortgage and credit card debt that eats more and more of their paychecks every month?

No. Instead you point to “That One,” you call your opponent a terrorist, and display only that rictus grin (and certainly no honor) as those desperate to believe in white American exceptionalism - defined perfectly by your substance-less, purely entitlement-based campaign - shout out “traitor” and “kill him.”

You heap scorn on a thirty-year-old community organization, ACORN, whose only goal is to make manifest the Voting Rights Act for those whom your Republican party has disenfranchised at every opportunity, and whose “crime,” you contest, is following federal law by turning over to the rightful authorities each and every voter registration form they receive, dutifully marking those that may be fraudulent.

This country does not need any more of your cynicism, your race-baiting, your voter caging, your desperation, or your lies.

And the only words I want or need to hear out of Barack Obama tonight are those spoken once before in the face of a washed-up politican, without honor, for whom fear-baiting was his last, and only, resort:

“Enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Barack Obama has widened his lead over his Republican presidential rival John McCain to 14 points, according to a new opinion poll from the New York Times and CBS News.

The 53% to 39% gulf in the two main candidates’ poll ratings suggests that Obama is continuing to capitalise from public anxieties prompted by the financial crisis. Detailed questions contained in the poll also indicate that McCain’s strategy of launching increasingly personal attacks against his opponent have had an adverse effect, turning voters off McCain rather than sowing seeds of doubt in their minds about the Democratic nominee.

Sixty per cent of voters told the survey they felt McCain had spent more time knocking his adversary than in explaining his own policies; the reverse impression held true for Obama.

But then we thought Kerry was a shoo-in also.

Here is the full article

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Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

It’s a wonder they accepted the birth certificate application, what with the Cheetoh stains and all:

A new father has secretly named his baby girl Sarah McCain Palin after the Republican ticket for president and vice president.

Mark Ciptak of Elizabethton put that name on the documents for the girl’s birth certificate, ignoring the name Ava Grace, which he and his wife had picked earlier.

“I don’t think she believes me yet,” he told the Kingsport Times-News for a story to be published Tuesday. “It’s going to take some more convincing.”

Yeah, that’s what you want to do to the woman who just carried your child for nine months and then went through the rigors of delivery: steal the beautiful name she’s picked out and replace it with what will be, in three short weeks, nothing more than a dated punchline.

Can the stupidity of McCain supporters even be quantified at this point?

h/t Oyster

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

2 Comments

• At October 14, 2008, Lew Waters wrote:

  Obviously, this guy violated a trust between his wife and himself, but "stupidity" of McCain/Palin supporters?

  Would it be stupidity had someone named their newborn Barack Hussein Obama something without informing the wife after they had agreed upon a name?

  My guess is the wife will win out and the baby girls name changed back to what they agreed upon. If not, hot dinner isn't the only thing the hubbie won't receive

• At October 15, 2008, missy wrote:

  Would it be stupidity had someone named their newborn Barack Hussein Obama something without informing the wife after they had agreed upon a name?

  Absolutely.

  And yes, this guy is a singular bozo, but because I can't think of a single reason anyone would want to vote for John McCain, he just seems emblematic of McCain supporters in general, who can't think of anything to say but "Ayres! ACORN! AYRES! ACORN!"

Or is he just stupid?

From economist Dean Baker:

It is not that anything about the current economic situation can plausibly lead to ten years of double-digit unemployment. However, we are seeing views expressed by otherwise serious people that could in fact give us the sort of prolonged stagnation that we saw in the Great Depression.

Advocating spending cuts and/or tax increases in the wake of the downturn that we are now seeing make about as much sense for the economy as nuking Silicon Valley. If the advocates of such nuttiness get their way, then a Great Depression type downturn may be on the agenda.

McCain in last week’s debate:

I believe that we have to eliminate the earmarks. And sometimes those projects, not — not the overhead projector that Senator Obama asked for, but some of them that are really good projects, will have — will have to be eliminated, as well.

And they’ll have to undergo the same scrutiny that all projects should in competition with others.

So we’re going to have to tell the American people that spending is going to have to be cut in America. And I recommend a spending freeze that — except for defense, Veterans Affairs, and some other vital programs, we’ll just have to have across-the-board freeze.

Yeah, when unemployment goes through the roof and the economy is on the skids, pull more money out of it. That’ll help.

But, you ask, with a trillion dollar deficit and $11 trillion national debt, how can we ever afford to pay for reinvestment in our infrastructure and the creation of new industries and jobs, as we’ll need to to rebuild the U.S. economy?

Peter DeFazio has the right idea with his Rebuild America Tax: put a 10% surtax on all income of more than $1,000,000 for couples and $500,000 for individuals. This would allow the folks who’ve made the most out of the Bush tax cuts to give back to their country in its time of need. We could even sunset the surtax after a decade, giving it a nice symmetry with the Bush tax cuts’ planned expiration (unless McCain gets his way and makes them permanent, as he insanely still wants to do - he really doesn’t know anything about economics, does he?)

Anyway, ten years should be just enough time to get the economy back on its feet - or it would be, if we get at least two terms under a strong Democratic president with workable majorities in the House and Senate.

And while we’re building this new economy of ours, what a great opportunity to look at all parts of it anew: health care, banking and securities regulation, corporate personhood and responsibility.

Just as it’s taken the worst economic disaster in 80 years to get this country to, just maybe, look beyond race in a Presidential election, perhaps now is the moment for real progressive change.

That’s the kind of change we can believe in. Right, Senator Obama?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

His hero, General David Petraeus, wants to negotiate with terrorists and calls his own countrymen “thugs”:

U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus said on Wednesday that negotiations with some members of the Taliban could provide a way to reduce violence in sections of Afghanistan gripped by an intensifying insurgency.
…
Petraeus said negotiations with insurgents willing to consider reconciliation could reduce violence by isolating hard-core militants, which is what occurred in Iraq’s Anbar province when Sunni tribesmen joined U.S. forces against al Qaeda.

“You’ve got to set things up. You’ve got to know who you’re talking to. You’ve got to have your objectives straight,” the general said.
…
The British commander in Afghanistan, Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith, also told the Sunday Times that negotiations with the Taliban could bring needed progress.

Asked about those remarks, Petraeus noted that Britain’s long experience negotiating with adversaries helped reduce violence in Iraq. “They’ve sat down with thugs throughout their history, including us in our early days, I suspect,” he said.

When will John McCain demand a retraction, and explain his relationship with this terrorist sympathizer?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Of the many problems I have with John McCain, his absolute refusal to dirty himself with any issues regarding women and women’s health is the most maddening.

My Dad is just two years younger than McCain, and was brought up such a sheltered good Catholic boy that when a friend explained the facts of life to my poor, ignorant 12-year-old Dad, that friend got a punch in the nose for his trouble. You see, my grandmother and grandfather would never do such a thing.

But Dad grew up, married and had three daughters (and one son), and slowly but surely made his way into the 20th (and now 21st) centuries. Not only is he well educated in the workings of the female reproductive system, but this moderate Republican was instrumental in establishing the first Planned Parenthood clinic in his very conservative South Florida county, and now sits on its board.

So John McCain, you, with your two wives and several daughters, have no excuse for being as blissfully clueless as a Victorian husband banished from the marital quarters during his wife’s “confinement.” And as a Senator with aspirations to be president of a country that is just slightly more than 50% female, you have no right or excuse to be this ignorant:

Mr. Bush’s defunding of the U.N. Population Fund — backed by Senator McCain — has persisted since 2002. What is new is the extension of that policy to a leading private family-planning organization like Marie Stopes International.

“The irony and hypocrisy of it is that this is a bone to the self-described ‘pro-life’ movement, but it will result in deaths to women who just want to space their births,” said Dana Hovig, the chief executive of Marie Stopes International. The organization estimates that the result will be at least 157,000 additional unwanted pregnancies per year, leading to 62,000 additional abortions and 660 women dying in childbirth.
…
“This nearsighted maneuver will have direct and dire consequences,” a group of prominent public health experts in America declared in an open letter, adding that the action “will translate almost immediately into increased maternal death and disability.”

…Mr. McCain seems to have supported Mr. Bush, mostly out of instinct, and when a reporter asked him this spring whether American aid should finance contraceptives to fight AIDS in Africa, he initially said, “I haven’t thought about it,” and later added, “You’ve stumped me.”
…
In some parts of Africa, a woman now has a 1-in-10 risk of dying in childbirth. The idea that U.S. policy may increase that toll is infuriating.

Earlier this year, McCain gave a similarly clueless (and even combative) response when asked by a reporter whether insurance companies that cover Viagra should also be required to cover birth control:

Republican John McCain prides himself on being a straight talker. But he resisted being dragged into a discussion Wednesday about insurance companies that cover Viagra but not birth control products.

“I certainly do not want to discuss that issue,” the presidential candidate said when a reporter asked him about it on his campaign bus, the “Straight Talk Express.”
…
When asked Wednesday if he had voted in the Senate against a proposal to require insurance companies to cover contraceptive products, McCain replied, “I don’t know enough about it to give you an informed answer because I don’t recall the vote… I don’t usually duck an issue, but I’ll try to get back to you.”

A man with two post-pubescent daughters in 2008 who can be stumped by questions like these does not have the intellectual wherewithal - or even the basic knowledge - to be president, especially at a time when teen pregnancy, STDs and maternal and infant mortality are on the rise in the U.S.

As many of you know, I lost my best friend Karen when she died in childbirth in February 2004; this issue is very close to my heart. If you would like to mitigate some of what John McCain’s cruel ignorance has wrought, you can donate birthing kits for midwives in remote areas of developing countries, or give to NARAL, or even just give blood (1-800-GIVELIFE for blood drives in your area). Karen was given 23 units of blood before her brain died from lack of oxygen; in addition to her doctors, 23 strangers gave a little of their time to try to save her life. I’m giving again on Saturday, working my way toward my 5th gallon, and Karen is on my mind each and every time.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At October 9, 2008, me wrote:

  So sorry for your loss.

All going well, I’ll be liveblogging the debate from the Baghdad Theater in Portland tonight over at my place. This one will be far more serious than Wink-Expo 2008, but it will be interesting to see if McCain has the cojones to look Obama in the eyes and spout some of this racist, harem-scarem bullshit:

I don’t need any lessons in being honest with the American people, and if I did, I wouldn’t seek it from a Chicago politician… There’s much we don’t know about Senator Obama. For a guy who has authored two memoirs, he’s not exactly an open book. Who is the real Barack Obama?

It’s as if somehow the usual rules don’t apply, and where other candidates have to explain themselves and their records, Senator Obama seems to think he is above all that….

In other words, LOOOOOKOUT! HERE COMES THE BIG, BLACK BOOGIE MAN!

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

if he ever was, McCain has become Richard III, Iago and Macbeth rolled into one.

He is the scheming, lame and eternally bitter Richard of Gloucester, needing to kill all goodness around him so as to never face that contrast to his black soul, and needing war, too, as peace gives him nowhere to put his rage:

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

He is Macbeth, desperately needing power to vanquish his consuming, existential fear:

Seyton!–I am sick at heart,
When I behold–Seyton, I say!–This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

But, most of all, McCain is Iago, feigning good will to “my friends” while seething with hatred for the Othello, the man who has so easily won the love and fealty that McCain believes - no, knows - is his due. Obama has not just won it for himself but stolen it, somehow. For how could Obama come by his popularity, his charisma, his charm but by some trick, some dark magic? It cannot be that McCain, son of an admiral, veteran of not only war but prison camp, can truly come in second to this young, black man:

The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,
Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,
And I dare think he’ll prove to Desdemona
A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too;
Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure
I stand accountant for as great a sin,
But partly led to diet my revenge,
For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leap’d into my seat; the thought whereof
Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards;
And nothing can or shall content my soul
Till I am even’d with him, wife for wife,
Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor
At least into a jealousy so strong
That judgment cannot cure.

It never ends well for Shakespeare’s villains; though Iago survives his treachery, his is the cursed half-life of a self-damned soul.

And so it will be with McCain, particularly if for the next 27 days he does nothing but attack Obama’s character. Doubtless it will narrow the point spread, but the poison will leech into McCain himself.

McCain has no Teflon; he does not have the same sociopathic amorality that allows George W. Bush and Sarah Palin to sail through the political waters unaffected by either the ugly truth or their own nasty lies. McCain can’t do the Bush/Palin “regular guy” schtick; he is largely charmless, and his meanness and spite comes from his tortured and all-too-easily wounded ego.

Somewhere, deep down, McCain recognizes the small scared and scarred man that he is, and each time he lashes out at Obama he rips of a piece of his own armor. He has done himself no service with his campaign, either politically or existentially. Whether he wins this race or loses, I believe he will have shortened his life substantially. All the more reason to vote against him.

But I cannot help feeling the same reluctant pity one feels for Richard III, who was born into the world a mean, ugly, angry little shit, always second to his handsome and primogenitor-blessed older brother, and destined to leave the world much the same as he entered it. John McCain certainly entered the world with significant advantages (and what he didn’t come by naturally he married into), but he also was born with a aircraft-carrier-sized chip on his shoulder. If his Othello had not come along in the form of Barack Obama, McCain would have had to invent him, to kick the bastards in the nuts one last time before he shuffles off his mortal coil.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light, Sen. McCain, if it makes you feel better. But know that as you do, the bastards you are fighting are your fellow citizens. And they won’t thank you for it, whichever way things turn out on November 5.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

6 Comments

• At October 7, 2008, Ashley wrote:

  I really find your articles on Sarah Palin and John McCain revolting. Do you really believe that every woman has irresponsible unprotected sex and then uses abortion as birth control? I am a 29 year old woman who would not have an abortion; some people actually respect the rights of unborn children, both male and female. How can you say you support women’s rights, but yet also support thousands of female babies being killed because they are an inconvenience? You are more concerned with wildlife than with human life. You sound like an idiot when you say you care more about the rights of an animal than you do a human. That is insanity as far as I am concerned. There are Christian people left in this world who believe that children should be taught to live a respectable life and adhere to moral standards. Why do you have such a problem with that? Does it bother you if we do not teach our children to be "free spirits" who collect welfare their whole lives and spit out babies if it is convenient to get a larger check, but abort the inconvenient ones? Obama is not what I want in a president, I want someone who I respect, like John McCain and Sarah Palin. McCain/Palin, the right choice for America in 2008.

• At October 7, 2008, missy wrote:

  Your comment is so chock full of subjects (and all totally unresponsive to my post); I hardly no where to begin, Ashley.

  So why don't you tell the good folks who read Democracy for Vancouver what it is you "respect" about John McCain and Sarah Palin, and why Barack Obama "is not what [you] want in a president."

  Points off for mentioning Christianity, though, as that is a religion you share with Sen. Obama, as well as Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin.

• At October 8, 2008, missy wrote:

  Ashley,

  I don't know what it was in my post about McCain's resemblance to many of Shakespeare's villainous male characters that brought you to the subject of abortion, but it seems to be the one most important to you.

  Are you aware that McCain himself said he would leave the choice of keeping or aborting an unwanted pregnancy to his daughters (during his run for the White House in 2000)? His "choice" to become pro-life followed directly from his presidential ambition, nothing else. And regarding Governor Palin, I would bet you $1,000 that Bristol Palin's shotgun marriage doesn't last 5 years. Teenage marriage can do far more damage to a woman than abortion, to say nothing of what her child will have to endure under the care of two immature parents.

  Abortion is an unbelievably difficult and personal issue for each woman confronted by it. Until you have been the child of a mother who had a nervous breakdown and was suicidal after being denied birth control by her Catholic physician (who called her a slut for asking for it) and then had 3 children between the ages of 22 and 25, don't talk to me about "using abortion as birth control." Do you know any women who have used abortion as birth control? I don't. But I have known women who had abortions after birth control failed, or after finding out that their long-desired child had a birth defect so severe that the child would only live hours or days after birth.

  I have also lost my best friend to a placental abnormality for which the only cure is a late term abortion, because placenta percreta is only diagnosed after the 20th week. The only cure for this condition is to stop the placenta from doing any further damage, by removing it - and the growing fetus. My friend died when the doctors could not stop her post-partum hemorrhage.

  Tell me, Ashley - have you protested the more than 100,000 innocent civilians killed by the U.S. in Iraq? Did you protest the deaths of the more than 500,000 children who could have been saved by prescription drugs we refused to allow into Iraq during the sanctions after Gulf War I?

  Let's start with the actual living, breathing human beings who are suffering and dying without healthcare, or under our bombs, before we turn on women who are making the most difficult choice of all to the best of their ability.

• At October 10, 2008, Ashley wrote:

  The reason that I was pressing the issue of abortion was that a reply I received said "points off for mentioning Christianity" and I was pointing out that a candidate who openly supports abortion does not seem to me to practice the same form of Christianity that I do. In my church we were taught that a child is a gift from God and should not be aborted. Apparently, Obama's church or Obama himself does not agree.

  Also, yes I do have two friends (and they are still my friends even after having abortions) who did not bother to use birth control, got pregnant, and then said they just did not want a baby and had abortions. That is using abortion as birth control after the fact.

  The purpose of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are to prevent another terrorist attack on American soil. It’s preventive maintenance, like having your car serviced. I understand that civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan have unfortunately lost their lives. It is a sad fact of war. But, ultimately the citizens of those countries will better off without Al-Qaeda and Saddam terrorizing them in their own country. Civilians also died in WWII but that did not stop us from trying to stop Hitler did it?

  Life is not perfect; there have been wars since the beginning of time. Also, anyone in the military had to know that they might one day be involved in a war. After all, that is what the military does.

• At October 10, 2008, missy wrote:

  So abortion used as birth control is murder, but invading a disarmed and beaten-down country as "preventive maintenance, like having your car serviced" is sad but blameless?

  Iraq in 2003 was not Germany in 1941. Iraq had no part in 9/11, had made no threats against the U.S., had no weapons of mass destruction, and yet we invaded that country and killed upwards of 1,000,00 people. That's "preventative maintenance"? What did we prevent? Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until after we invaded (as religious extremists they were secular Saddam Hussein's natural enemy, and Osama bin Laden counted Saddam as among the worst apostates in the Arab world); and our invasion has monumentally shifted the balance of power in that part of the world to Iran's favor. That's "preventative maintenance"?

  This is an honest question, so please take it as such: Do you truly, sincerely believe that we have done the right thing in Iraq? Not just since the "surge," but objectively, in terms of national security and defense, and balancing the rights of the Iraqi people to not be killed against our rights to protect ourselves? Because there really was nothing to protect ourselves against in Iraq, and we knew that. That's been proven over and over again. So, just as a straight yes or no question, given the information now available to you (and that's been available to Bush & Cheney since well before we started this war), was invading Iraq the right thing to do?

  Not that you care, but if you answer "yes," it will not make me angry or frustrated. It will break my heart. Because I don't want to believe my fellow Americans can be ready to kill other living, breathing people, fathers and mothers and children, for no reason at all except to appease our wounded national pride.

  That is not only sociopathic, it's a war crime.

• At October 10, 2008, me wrote:

  It's not a matter of "supporting" abortion, its a matter of respecting a woman's privacy and caring about her health.

  http://www.elroy.net/ehr/abortion.html

Especially if Geritol is all you have, because your Medicare got cut:

John McCain would pay for his health plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, a top aide said, in a move that independent analysts estimate could result in cuts of $1.3 trillion over 10 years to the government programs.
…
In the months since Sen. McCain introduced his health plan, statements made by his campaign have implied that the new tax credits he is proposing to help Americans buy health insurance would be paid for with other tax increases.

But Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain’s senior policy adviser, said Sunday that the campaign has always planned to fund the tax credits, in part, with savings from Medicare and Medicaid. Those government health-care programs serve seniors, poor families and the disabled. Medicare spending for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 is estimated at $457.5 billion.

First deregulate so that Grandma loses her retirement savings, and then take away her healthcare.

Everyone should be on the marry-a-beer-heiress retirement plan, though, right?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

3 Comments

• At October 7, 2008, Allen wrote:

  Missy, you forgot to mention that Mcinsane also wants to tax people who have insurance provided to them from collective bargaining. But Mcinsane has never had to buy health insurance for himself and family. He has lived on taxpayer funded insurance all of his life (dad's military, his military, and as an elected critter).

  Yes, health insurance is a big problem in this country, but taxing people more because they are lucky to have insurance is not the answer.

• At October 7, 2008, missy wrote:

  Where, exactly, did I say that McCain has military benefits?

  He may well have them, but his primary healthcare is through the Senate.

  Shouldn't all Americans have the same health benefits our representatives get? If not, why not?

• At October 7, 2008, Allen wrote:

  Ashley, as a disabled vet, I have every right to say what I think about McCain, or Obama. But the fact remains, Mcinsane has never had to purchase insurance. He has been on the taxpayers dime his whole life when it comes to insurance.

  And yes, why can't we all have the insurance plan that our elected crooks receive?

Not the time when you want Phil Gramm’s puppet, Mr. Don’t Know Nuthin’ Bout No Economics, leading the charge.

The last time I got a bonus at the end of the year was 1998. The economy in the U.S. was slowing down, but if you were in the export business, you were growing like mad.

This time, the rest of the world is going down with us:

The global financial crisis deepened Monday as U.S. and overseas stock exchanges plummeted amid eroding confidence in the world’s banking system. Countries big and small struggled to contain a widening panic among both investors and depositors.

In the United States, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 400 points within an hour of the opening bell…

It was just as bad in overseas trading, where European and Asian exchanges sunk sharply too. In Europe, many exchanges posted their worst days ever.
…
In a troubling sign that the entire globe is suffering financial contagion, big emerging economies that helped fuel global economic growth in recent years even as the U.S. economy slowed are now in turmoil themselves.

In Brazil, once the darling of global investors, trading on the Bovespa exchange in Sao Paulo was halted twice as panicky investors pulled out en masse. The Brazilian exchange fell 11 percent at opening, triggering so-called circuit breaker mechanisms that halt rapid declines. After reopening, the market fell another 15 percent and trading was halted again.

Mexico, another important developing nation and one integrated into the U.S. economy, also felt shockwaves Monday. Its stock market fell 9 percent after it opened, recovering to just under 7 percent by midday in volatile trading.

What sent Brazilian and Mexican stocks skidding was news out of Europe that bank failures and financial problems were widening. European stocks slid on news of similar declines on Asian exchanges.
…
What is unfolding around the world is a modern-day equivalent of a run on banks. Investors have almost no confidence in virtually anything but Treasury bonds and the U.S. dollar, which just a few months ago was embattled.

While things in my office are okay right now, looking down the road I don’t see much of a market for what we’re shipping overseas: a raw material used in producing big-ticket consumer goods. Especially if T-bills and the U.S. dollar continue to be the World’s mattress.

I’ve never been so happy that my husband is a public school teacher.

The one small light in all this darkness?

McCain’s course correction reflects a growing case of nerves within his high command as the electoral map has shifted significantly in Obama’s favor in the past two weeks.

“It’s a dangerous road, but we have no choice,” a top McCain strategist told the Daily News. “If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose.”

What do you think will be the main topic at tomorrow night’s debate?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Watch the video
1. McCain’s Green Economy: Drill, Baby, Drill: (Click to show/hide)

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2. John McCain: Economic Disaster: (Click to show/hide)

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3. Why the Rich Love McCain’s Tax Plan: (Click to show/hide)

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4. The REAL McCain is anti-choice: (Click to show/hide)

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver