"Many have stated that Barack Hussein Obama is the AntiChrist
He wishes to be leader of the most powerful nation on the planet.
Though he has not had decades upon decades of his family in power, his sudden rise in prominence has opened a discussion on the potential of him being the AntiChrist.
We do not have an opinion. Please voice yours.
It now appears that John McCain has now called Obama the AntiChrist as well."
Just three days after David Miliband's last attempt to draw a line under the story, the British Foreign Affairs Select Committee published its latest report on the British Overseas Territories (PDF), and was scathing about Diego Garcia, declaring that "it is deplorable that previous U.S. assurances about rendition flights have turned out to be false. The failure of the United States Administration to tell the truth resulted in the UK Government inadvertently misleading our Select Committee and the House of Commons. We intend to examine further the extent of UK supervision of U.S. activities on Diego Garcia, including all flights and ships serviced from Diego Garcia."
These new revelations, of course, leave the U.S. administration looking like bald-faced liars and the British government looking like myopic dupes. Whether Michael Hayden was also duped is not known, but his strenuous denial, just five months ago, that a secret prison existed, which was manned by his own employees, will do nothing for the credibility of the U.S. administration, which likes to pretend that it does not torture and has nothing to conceal, but is persistently discovered not only being economical with the truth, but also behaving exactly as though it has guilty secrets to hide.
Whether this scandal will awaken much indignation in the American public remains to be seen, but it is hugely damaging to the British government, which is legally responsible for the activities that take place on its territory, however much it likes to hide behind "assurances" from its leaseholders that they have done nothing wrong.
It scarcely seems possible, but Diego Garcia's dark history has suddenly grown even darker.
Once upon a time, the United States of America was a nation of laws.
Well, it's an interesting ad. Of course, I am damned glad Obama is not like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. Primarily because I can do without him getting out of a car with no underwear under his skirt exposing his genitalia, or having a drugged-out sex video of himself circulating the Internet.
...snip...
Obama may be no Spears or Hilton, but he is most definitely a celebutard.
Why not address who the "drugged out celubutard" Hiltons and Spears of the world really identify with? And is the McCain campaign this desperate to avoid real issues? And since we have established your unique/eunuch style of GOP talking point Blogging/Flogging...
But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.
When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons
had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.
Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.
Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.
For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.
"His staff responded with the classic "he was tortured for his country." Yeah, we get it. The torture card. It's to McCain what 9/11 was to Giuliani's candidacy - the never-ending name-drop. Though what McCain's staff actually said was downright, um, we're being nice to Clinton now, so I won't say Clintonian. Here's the quote:
McCain campaign strategist Mark Salter said Monday night that McCain was technically disabled. "Tortured for his country -- that is how he acquired his disability," Salter said.
Technically? What does that mean? Usually, it means that under the strict reading of the law, you're covered, but in fact it's kind of a nudge-nudge-wink-wink situation - that's what "technically" means. It's called parsing, which is something you do to "technically" claim something is true, when on its face it really isn't. So is McCain "technically" disabled, and taking $58,000 a year tax free from the government, or is he actually disabled? I would imagine there are other solders who are actually disabled who could use the money. And if he is actually disabled, just how disabled is he?
I think our troops should only get the best, and we've beaten up the administration a lot for leaving our injured troops and vets in the lurch. But I also remember from those articles how hard it is for our current injured troops to get the health care they need (the military is actually refusing to diagnose PTSD in order to save money on benefits!). I'm just not sure that the McCains, who own "eight or nine houses," should be getting $58k a year tax-free from the government for a "technical" disability when others who don't have families worth a gazillion dollars could use that support a lot more."
Tortured for his country?Is that a nice way of saying he is batshit loopy? This is a legitimate issue, raised in this LA Times story:
McCain spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. After he was released in 1973, he returned home on crutches and began a painful physical rehabilitation. He later regained flight status and commanded a Navy squadron before retiring from the service in 1981.
McCain would be the oldest man to enter the White House if he is elected president, and questions have been raised about his health.
...snip...
The fact that he is legally designated with a disability pension may raise further questions.
“It is a legitimate question to ask about the commander in chief: Is he fit to serve,” said Robert Schriebman, a senior Pentagon tax advisor and tax attorney who recently retired as a judge advocate for a unit of the California National Guard.
If McCain can hike across the Grand Canyon, then why should he be getting disability payments from the government that are tax-exempt, Schriebman asked.
...reason to give a recommend, then there was never any diary over there that was ever worth a recommend.
The Great White Hope
The media’s moment of disillusionment with John McCain appears to be at hand. Even Joe Klein has finally noticed that McCain’s profile is beginning to resemble the endomorphic shadow of his backstage advisor, Karl Rove, not one of the faces on Mt. Rushmore.
It’s all very predictable – about as predictable as the media’s abrupt discovery in the summer of 2005, as New Orleans sank beneath the waves, that the president of the United States was, gasp!, an incompetent boob.
But anyone who’s studied McCain’s career with any intellectual detachment at all (as opposed to the hagiographic tendencies of his media cheerleading claque) could have told you: The truth about John McCain is that he'll do just about anything and say just about anything to win. He always has. He's just been more clever (and cynical) than most in how he goes about it.
Joe defends the new McCain attack ad: "To some extent the appearance of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears -- people complain about it -- they should just relax and enjoy it."
--David Kurtz
Here he is addressing the latest victims:
Independent Republican Joe Lieberman, John McCain and bush address the Dead Elephant caucus of the GOP.
That's what the eccentric uncle in my family turned out to be. Of course, the internal dynamics of the "family" known as the Democratic Party are no doubt subtly different from those of my own, so perhaps not.
Still, Joe's recent remarks . . .
As he told reporters: "There's no question that at times I think some of the Democrats look at me sort of like the ... eccentric uncle, perhaps even the odd uncle at the family gatherings: 'We like him, but every now and then he says things that make us wonder.'"
McCain and his campaign repeated at least two lines of attack against Obama, which when first said in early July, were called “bogus,” “wrong,” “inflated” and “misleading” by independent fact checkers.
At his town hall today, McCain repeated that Obama wants to raise taxes on those making as little as $32,000 a year and in his campaign’s response to Obama’s event in Springfield, Mo., today, repeated that “…Obama’s bad judgment led him to vote in support of higher taxes 94 times….”
Now, I won’t bore you detailing all of the ways in which McCain is lying here. Instead, I’ll just farm this one out — the claim about raising taxes on those making as little as $32,000 a year is demonstrably false, and the claim about voting for higher taxes 94 times is just as ridiculous.
Does thisbushtacticbushremind you ofbushanyonebushat all?
I note with interest today, John McCain's new tactic of associating Barack Obama with oversexed and/or promiscuous young white women. (See today's new ad and this from yesterday.) Presumably, a laHarold Ford 2006, this will be one of those strategies that will be a matter of deep dispute during the campaign and later treated as transparent and obvious once the campaign is concluded.
And yes... I will sink even lower than the conservative side to fight back, tit for tat, on their terms.
[update] I posted this over at dKos to try and verify the image origins (You can see what they had to say here) but one comment relayed a useful link:
Paris' Parents to McCain: How Dare You! This has gotta hurt. We did some digging and found Rick and Kathy Hilton gave the John McCain campaign $4,600 this year, and Johnny boy has now taken a shot at their lil' girl.
According to the Federal Election Commission website, the Hiltons contributed the dough last March. Initially, Rick put up all the $$$ but in April it was split between him and his wife.
Now McCain is taking a shot at Obama, using Paris as his ditzy weapon.
Today, Father Coughlin -- er, sorry, frog in my throat -- Bill O'Reilly is planning another in his ongoing attacks against Daily Kos and YearlyKos. Fox News has apparently been emailing the Democratic campaigns asking them for "comment" on Bill's ongoing Jihad of Jackassery: the following email was sent on to us from one of those Democratic campaigns:
From: Mitchell, Ron [mailto:xxxxxxx@FOXNEWS.COM] Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 To: xxxxxxx Subject: Fox News Request
This is Ron Mitchell with Bill O'Reilly at the Fox News Channel.
The O'Reilly Factor plans an update on issues involving DailyKos website the story for Monday.
There are some disturbing images on the DailyKos depicting Sen. Joe Lieberman and others along with some very offensive language. We are asking for statements regarding this issue from each of the Democratic candidates planning to attend the YearlyKos convention.
The image attached is from an active posting. I think that most people would agree that this sort of thing has no place in mainstream political discourse.
So, what was this abominable photoshopped image, the one that was supposed to "bury" Daily Kos by the mere fact that some commenter once put it on the site? Well, here it is, but I warn you, it is very graphic and mean and abominable and it causes puppies to cry, so we don't dare post it.
DailyKos had been so afraid of this fight that they feared posting the shockingly disturbing image... Well? Maybe not.
Front page space ain't cheap at dKos so they only snarkily supplied a space saving link to the hyper-offensive photo. But here at my little brewery not only is front page space cheap but it is also found in plentiful abundance for anyone with access (that would be me!) and has shown a willingness to poke fun at R (Idiots) like bush and Joe neocon Lieberman (that would be me, again!) any chance they can:
Truthfully, this could not really be the BIG O'Reilly story that everyone really wanted to talk about last year, could it? It had to be a minor distraction from the real news of the day, right? Opening Crooks and Liars today (among the many great Blogs I start my day with) was a reminder of the significance of today and, of course, the real reason for last year's bloviating Bill O'.
During the course of O'REILLY's telephone monologue on August 2, 2004, he suggested that Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS purchase a vibrator and name it, and that he had one "shaped like a cock with a little battery in it" that a woman had given him. It became apparent that Defendant was masturbating as he spoke. After he climaxed, Defendant O'REILLY said to Plaintiff: "I appreciate the fun phone call. You can have fun tonight. I'll appreciate it. I mean it."
When Plaintiff responded that she never engaged in phone sex, Defendant BILL O'REILLY professed disbelief, and told her that the sexual stories he told were all based on his own experiences, such as when he received a massage in a cabana in Bali and the "little short brown woman" asked to see his penis and was "amazed." Defendant BILL O'REILLY then suggested that he tell Plaintiff the same sexual stories, which he knew she would "just love." Shocked and embarrassed, Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS informed Defendant in no uncertain terms that she was never experienced in nor interested in gaining experience in telephone sex. Defendant expressed disbelief.
Falafel Day
Line 54.
If any woman ever breathed a word I'll make her pay so dearly that she'll wish she'd never been born. I'll rake her through the mud, bring up things in her life and make her so miserable that she'll be destroyed. And besides, she wouldn't be able to afford the lawyers I can or endure it financially as long as I can. And nobody would believe her, it'd be her word against mine and who are they going to believe? Me or some unstable woman making outrageous accusations. They'd see her as some psycho, someone unstable. Besides, I'd never make the mistake of picking unstable crazy girls like that.
Line 55.
If you cross FOX NEWS CHANNEL, it's not just me, it's [FOX President] Roger Ailes who will go after you. I'm the street guy out front making loud noises about the issues, but Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes and makes things happen so that one day BAM! The person gets what's coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he's going to get a knock on his door and life as he's known it will change forever. That day will happen, trust me.
Yes... I think O'Reilly's ranting and raving and foaming at the mouth over a little picture on dKos may have been a distraction from what was really going on in the news that day.
Maybe I should try crossposting this over at dKos just to see if the streetfighter, Bill O'Reilly, and his behind the scenes, strategizing boss destroyed the dKos community after he raked them through the mud?
[update] Just like O'Reilly failed to cover up his sordid phone sex scandal, it appears that he has failed to take down dKos. I wouldn't be a real Blogger if I didn't fact-check these things, would I?
The Bush administration and its stepchild John McCain have opted for a bold new strategy to counter the overwhelming success of Barack Obama's whirlwind foreign policy world tour: they've declared victory in Iraq.
This could preserve the neocons' aim of establishing a permanent military footprint in the geographic heart of the Middle East. Their only problem will come when the American public starts believing we've won and begins to expect the administration to draw down the troop presence in Iraq for real."
"Three female suicide bombers and a roadside bomb struck Shiite pilgrims taking part in a massive religious procession in Baghdad on Monday. Police said at least 32 people were killed and 102 wounded. The attacks occurred in quick succession in the early morning in the mainly Shiite Karradah district, as tens of thousands of Shiite worshippers streamed toward the pilgrimage site in Kazimiyah, northern Baghdad. Meanwhile at a Kurdish rally in the northern city of Kirkuk, A bomb blast killed at least 15 people and wounded 170 others. The attack occurred while demonstrators gathered to protest a provincial elections law being debated in Parliament. The law would limit the Kurds ability to control oil-rich Kirkuk which they consider to be part of their historical land. Last week Kurdish parties walked out of the Iraqi parliament in protest over the proposed law. Though the law was passed 127 to 13 it was later vetoed by President Jalal Talibani, who is also a Kurd. Though many reports claim violence in Iraq to be at its lowest point in three years, the political situation is still very volatile."
"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement," Chief Owen said.
"It appears that the church had received some publicity in the recent past regarding its liberal stance on things and that is at least one of the issues we believe caused that church to be selected."
The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church describes itself on its website as working for social change since the 1950s, including desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women's rights and gay rights.
But how do conservatives so corrupt a nation with their poisonous ideas that they can consistently cut back on liberal social safety nets like the food stamps that this man was about to lose, and that set this man off on his terrorist tirade, while simultaneously convincing the downtrodden citizens that their true allies, liberals that support safety nets, are to blame? A man who thinks that he is being discriminated against for his age, a man that would have had natural allies in today's left for this issue, taking it out on liberals when it is the conservatives and the GOP that have created the disposable employee society that favors corporations and makes many groups of employees obsolete by these conservative standards.
And, undoubtedly, conservatives will blame the evil liberals for all of the failed bush policies, conservative driven deregulation, and GOP created deficits that got us here. And, clearly, there are people that are crazy enough to buy their divisive propaganda and will act on it.
This is a worse problem than the simplified version of the GOP purposively creating a failed, bloated bureaucracy and then pointing to it when they are out of power and saying "government is bad" and blaming liberals for all of it as some vote getting tactic.
As with the church shootings in Colorado last December, the right will find some way to spin this story and turn Adkisson into an anti-Christian liberal whack job and blame it on the liberal media.
In response to the tragic church shootings in Colorado, Family Research Council head Tony Perkins naturally pointed the finger of blame at the “secular media.” The senseless massacre of several deeply religious people by one of their own reflected, he claimed, “hostility that is being fomented in our culture from some in the secular media toward Christians.” Of course, Perkins has it almost exactly backwards. Whether concerning abortion, gay Americans, immigration or judicial appointments, the line connecting the rhetoric of the Republican Party and the mainstream conservative movement to right-wing terror is a very short one.
[update deux] Scholars & Rogues seems to be writing about the same thing today, and it is well worth the read:
It would be simplistic and wrong-headed of me to blame a particular person or institution for Adkisson’s actions. I don’t know what Rush had to say last week - although I’m sure it was hateful and stupid - but Rush didn’t load up the shotgun and pull the trigger.
However, Rush is one of the people who has helped poison the waters in the sea that is American culture. FOX “News” and its hatefuck parade of gleefully toxic talking heads have dumped billions of gallons of rhetorical bile into the streams feeding the ocean of public opinion. Karl Rove has taught a new generation of bright-eyed Typhoid Marys to bathe in the waters that the rest of us drink.
Jim Adkisson was an unbalanced man, and perhaps it was only a matter of time before he snapped. But two questions to ponder: first, who created the conditions that hastened the snap? And second, when the train jumped the tracks, who created the bogeyman that the diseased brain latched onto as the cause of all the pain?
Inside the house, officers found “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, “Let Freedom Ring” by talk show host Sean Hannity, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly.
All he is missing is some Beck and Coulter on that hate monger's reading list.
