McCain Breaking Campaign Promises Already

The Real McCain is already breaking campaign promises:

As recently as this morning, McCain again told reporters that he planned on returning to the Senate for this evening’s vote on the economic stimulus, stating that Congress needed to quickly pass legislation.

The measure, blocked by conservatives, fell just one vote short of the 60 needed to end debate. At the “last minute,” McCain decided to skip the vote, even though his plane landed in DC in time. McCain claimed that he was “too busy“:

“I haven’t had a chance to talk about it at all, have not had the opportunity to, even,” McCain said. “We’ve just been too busy, focused on other stuff. I don’t know if I’m doing that. We’ve got a couple of meetings scheduled.”

Both Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) were able to return to the Senate and vote on the bill.

The reason for breaking this promise and allowing his GOP to filibuster the stimulus package? McCain was afraid to offend the craziest and most wingnutty wackos in his party:

Voting “no” with Republican leaders would have offended millions of Social Security recipients and the disabled veterans not scheduled to receive rebates. Voting “yes,” on the other hand, risked alienating Bush, GOP leaders and conservatives already suspicious of McCain’s political leanings. McCain was speaking Thursday before a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a group that booed him last year in absentia.

If he can't stand up to the Republican terrorists in his own GOP's base, you can be certain that even the mention of the words "al Qaeda" will make him wet his pants. Those words seem to have that effect on a lot of conservatives these days, so no surprise about that one... Never mind that he turned his back on the elderly and disabled veterans because he is a scared little old man.

Diebold voting machine key copied from pic on Diebold site

Via BradBlog, (and h/t Buzzflash) anyone can have their very own Diebold voting machine master key now:

Good lord in heaven. How dumb are these guys at Diebold?! Can you believe the United States has actually entrusted them to build a security system for the original U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights?!

After everything else... now comes this.

It was revealed in the course of last summer's landmark virus hack of a Diebold touch-screen voting system at Princeton University that, incredibly, the company uses the same key to open every machine. It's also an easy key to buy at any office supply store since it's used for filing cabinets and hotel mini-bars! That is, if you're not a poll worker who already has one from the last time you worked on an election (anybody listening down there in San Diego?).

snip

This idiotic company has had a photograph of the stupid key sitting on their own website's online store! (Screenshot [up ^^^ there])

Of course, they'll only sell such keys to "Diebold account holders" apparently --- or so they claim --- but that's hardly a problem.

C'mon Connecticut! Do you still trust your vote to these Diebold morons?

[update] While on the topic of voting issues, Real Hartford is trying to figure out if this is irregular:

If there is anyone else from Hartford who voted for Kucinich, please comment or contact me privately. The Courant is reporting only ONE person in all of Hartford voted for him, and while that could be the case, I sort of doubt it. There are towns of only about 10,000 people recorded as having 7 or 8 people vote for him, so I’m a little suspicious about the single voter in Hartford stat.

What do the Soldiers think about Bush's failed war?

Well? What do they really think?

Yesterday, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that members of the military donated the most not to McCain, but to two anti-war candidates:

Individuals in the Army, Navy and Air Force made those branches of the armed services among the top contributors in the 4th Quarter, ranking No. 13, No. 18 and No. 21, respectively. In 2007, Republican Ron Paul, who opposes U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, was the top recipient of money from donors in the military, collecting at least $212,000 from them. Barack Obama, another war opponent, was second with about $94,000.

These donations reflect the military’s disapproval with the Iraq war and President Bush’s handling of it. A recent Military Times poll found that just 46 percent of U.S. troops now believe that the country should have invaded Iraq, and only 40 percent approve of Bush’s handling of the war.

Money talks and bushit walks... And it is important to note that CGG's ActBlue (I am sure she has taken over the place now! lol jk) is becoming a real force to be reckoned with:

The biggest "contributor" of all after one year of fundraising remains the progressive group ActBlue, which facilitates individual donors pooling their money to finance Democratic candidates. In donations exceeding $200, ActBlue has directed more than $2.2 million to the presidential candidates, but nearly all of it went to dropouts John Edwards and Bill Richardson. ActBlue's fundraising is far greater than campaign finance reports would suggest, however, since donations below $200 are not itemized on candidates' reports and, therefore, cannot be tracked or totaled.

That money may not have pushed those candidates on to the top of the ticket, but it did help push Edwards and Richardson's pro-sanity positions on war, poverty and other issues to the forefront of the presidential debate. Sometimes winning is as simple as effecting the agenda of a primary or election. Never mind the large amounts ActBlue sends other candidates into what would normally be underfunded primary and election races.

ActBlue has raised over
$36,000,000.00
for their prefered candidates since 2004...

More Republican Sex Allegations

As one investigation led to another, it appears that more Republican sex may have taken place in Alaska. And, as is often the case, this typically GOPish sex scandal includes minors:

Allen teen sex inquiry reopened

Allen pleaded guilty in May to bribing Alaska lawmakers. Once the chairman and an owner of the oil field services company Veco, he was forced to sell the company and now faces a lengthy prison term. That's a stunning fall for a power broker who handed oil-policy decrees to a stable of bribed legislators and who regularly socialized with senators and other national political figures who came to Alaska as guests of Sen. Ted Stevens.

At the time the Boehm investigation was developing, from 2003 to 2004, Allen was still a major player in Alaska politics, as he had been for decades, and was a reliable source of campaign money for state candidates, members of Alaska's congressional delegation and other national politicians. In 2000 he was Alaska co-chairman of President Bush's election campaign.

In an interview in October, Vandegriff wouldn't name Allen's alleged victim or victims. He said Allen was not a direct subject of the Boehm investigation. But he said there was one person involved in both the Boehm case and the investigation of Allen: Bambi Tyree, one of Boehm's co-defendants.

Vince Blomfield, Tyree's boyfriend starting around 1999 when he was 36 and she was 18, said in an interview with a private investigator working for Boehm that Tyree claimed to have had a sexual relationship with Allen when she was 14 or 15. Allen would have been in his late 50s at the time. The interview with Blomfield was cited in a court filing by Boehm's attorneys, who were trying to portray Tyree as having a history of preying on older men with money.

It has become clear that in the modern dictionary "Republican" and "GOP" have become synonymous with "Pedophile". And before anyone starts with the "Both sides do this!" crap:

This summer’s political conventions are expected to be “a boom in business” for “the sex and adult entertainment industries,” but according to one veteran sex worker who spoke to the Rocky Mountain News, the GOP conventions are “a lot better for the sex workers.” “We get a lot more business,” Carol Leigh told the paper. “I don’t know if they’re just frustrated because of the family values agenda.”

Obviously, the party with all of those family values hypocrites do it a lot more, whether it involves minors or not.

Internet Media Internships At TPM

It is the last week to get your applications in for Talking Point Memo's spring internship program:

From January 14th:

Job Opening at TPM

Starting today, we're announcing a job opening for a reporter-blogger at TPMmuckraker. The new hire will be one of two full-time reporter-bloggers for the site. There is no deadline for applications. We'll be hiring as soon as we find the right person. If you're interested please send a resume, two clips and a letter describing your interest and qualifications for the job to talk (at) talkingpointsmemo.com with the subject line "TPMmuckraker Job".

This is a full-time position, with health care. The reporter-blogger will report from either New York or Washington, DC., depending on the applicant.

If you've already expressed interest in the position informally, please submit an application as described above.

To learn more about what we do at TPM and what we've accomplished in the last year, see these news reports on TPM from 2007. And thanks to our readers who make all of this possible.

Internships

TPM interns are vital to our operation and have a hand in everything we do. They work alongside our reporters to write and break stories, help our editors keep a finger on the pulse of the news day, and produce all kinds of digital media from youtube clips to mash-up photographs. Some of our interns have gone on to jobs here at TPM, others have moved on to jobs in new and old media alike, working for Think Progress, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, The New York Sun, and more. To learn more about what we do at TPM and what we've accomplished in the last year, see these news reports on TPM from 2007.

Because each intern is encouraged to work in multiple parts of our operation, it's important that applicants have a basic understanding of new media technologies (blogging, youtube, etc.) and a desire and ability to learn quickly. All internships are unpaid and based in TPM's New York City office.

To apply for any of our internships, send an email to talk at talkingpointsmemo.com with a cover letter, resume and two references. Include in the email subject "TPM Internship."

Spring 2008 Internship

Our Spring 2008 Internship runs from mid-March to early June. We will be accepting three or four full time interns. Part-time interns may be considered.

Applications are due on February 8th.

Summer 2008 Internship

Our Spring 2008 Internship runs from early June to late August. We will be accepting four or five full time interns. Part-time interns will not be considered.

Applications are due on March 21st.

Rolling Internships (Intern now!)

At any given time, it is always possible that we could use a smart person in the office to replace a lost intern or help us manage the ever-growing mountain of muck and news. If you're available to come in sooner than the beginning of the next internship cycle begins, let us know.

There are plenty of you Connecticut Bloggers that could bring a lot to their pages in filling these positions. And the trade off? Learning from one of the best media outfits on the intertubes...

DANGERstein Idiocy Alert!

Dan Gerstein's own brand of right wing propaganda, from BooMan at the The Booman Tribune:

For those of you keeping score at home, the Baby Boomer Generation is made up of people born between 1946 and 1964, meaning that they are currently between 44 and 62 years old. The Blog Reader Project shows the following demographic breakdown for Daily Kos readers:

Age:

Less than 18: 0.3%
18-20: 1.2%
21-34: 26.3%
35-45: 22.8%
46-55: 25.7%
56-65: 18.0%
66-75: 4.6%
Older than 75: 1.0%

The results show that the majority of Daily Kos readers are not Baby Boomers. The largest category (the plurality) is the 21-34 contingent, and more than 50% of readers (the majority) are too young to be part of the Boomer generation, while more than 5% are too old. This doesn't prevent senior adviser to Sen. Joe Lieberman's vice presidential and presidential campaigns, Dan Gerstein, from asserting:

The Kossacks and their activist allies -- who skew toward the Boomers -- believe that Republicans are venal bordering on evil, and that the way Democrats will win elections and hold power is to one-up Karl Rove's divisive, bare-knuckled tactics. Their opponents within the party -- who skew younger and freer of culture war wounds -- believe that the way to win is offer voters a break from this poisonous tribal warfare and a compelling, inclusive vision for where we want to take the country.

Technically, Gerstein said 'Kossacks and their activist allies', so I guess he can try to defend himself by claiming that the 'activist allies' skew to the boomer generation, thereby tilting Kossacks in that direction. I don't know, Gerstein is an asshat. But it's kind of important that he's screwed up the generational profile of Daily Kos because his entire essay depends on Kossacks (and by extension, the blogosphere as a whole) being about the politics of the past, in distinction from the hopeful, post-partisan politics of the future (as embodied in Senator Barack Obama).

Gerstein might be onto something about Kossacks (and the blogosphere more generally) but not because of the age distinctions, i.e., because non-Kossacks/Blogopshereites are "freer of culture war wounds." Ironically, Gerstein hits on a better explanation (though he skips right over it) while he is in the process of distorting the history of the Lieberman/Lamont battle.

Read on...

Yes! More asshat idiocy from Dan Gerstein...