I Read The News Today, Oh Boy: November 19, 2008

Life: Yr. End Issue-Sculpture Garden
"Monumental Head," bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti photographed in garden of Hirshhorn estate in Greenwich, Ct., 1973, Photographer Gjon Mili

The morning news shows are leading with today's message from Al Qaida threatening and insulting President-Elect Barack Obama. I am greatly amused to see the corporate media identify "house negro" as a racial insult, as Rush Limbaugh has been calling Obama "Barack the Magic Negro" for over a year and they have ignored his blatant racism.

Obama will appoint Eric Holder as his Attorney General, the first black AG in history. Pros: Holder has come out strongly in favor of the Geneva Conventions and against torture and Guantanamo. Cons: His corporate work, with Scooter Libby to get Marc Rich a pardon, and getting Chiquita Brands a slap on the wrist for hiring death squads to kill union organizers in Columbia. As I always say of defense lawyers, he's the best lawyer money can buy, so hopefully he will bring his prodigious skills over to the light for Obama. Here's a dailykos diary on the value of corporate lawyers.

Much gnashing of teeth from the corporate media about Hillary Clinton as SOS. Must be a good appointment then, if David Broder and David Ignatious and Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd are all wailing "Not Hillary!" They might get their way anyway, as Hillary is said to be unsure whether or not to accept the appointment.

Headline of the day: Texas grand Jury indicts Cheney, Gonzales

Rich, heartless bastard Mittwit Romney says: Let the auto companies go bankrupt. Yeah, let hundreds of thousands of workers eat cake. The progressive policy must be precisely the opposite. Here's a more responsible solution: The Right Way to Bail Out the Auto Industry

The Minnesota Senate recount starts today, with Norm Coleman holding a 215 vote, .008% lead. As Franken's spokesperson said, the score is 0-0 with 2.9 million votes to be counted. And as an aside, Traitor Joe Lieberman wrote an editorial for a Minnesota paper defending his pal Norm Coleman. The Senate Democrats should be ashamed of letting Judas Joe keep his committee chairmanship.

Looks like Missouri is no longer the nation's election bellwether, as McCain will take the Missouri electoral votes with a 4355 vote margin.

McCain's Down To His Last Card

The race card.



B L A C K

That card shows you once again the Real John McCain style.

R A C I S T

hat tip to Ari at Oxdown Gazette, who noticed.

McCain-Palin Rallies: Document the Atrocities

Pottsville, Pennsylvania yesterday:



Video by Keystone Progress.

(POTTSVILLE, PA)—In what has become a regular occurrence, dozens of supporters of Senator John McCain shouted racist and hate-filled speech at about 100 demonstrators yesterday in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

One of the McCain supporters was caught on video shouting "Bomb Obama!" repeatedly. When asked what he meant, he said "Get rid of him. I've had a number of people in the... when he gets in the White House..."

He then formed a gun with his hand and made a shooting sound.

The incident was reported immediately to Pottsville Police Captain Richard Wojciechowsky, who said it did not sound serious.

The video later was shown to the Secret Service.

Yesterday’s video, and similar videos from McCain and Palin rallies around Pennsylvania, were shot and produced by Keystone Progress. Keystone Progress is a multi-issue progressive advocacy organization that combines cutting edge online organizing and communications with rapid and hard-hitting earned media strategies.

Sunday Morning News Round-Up

Can't get enough of Peek-a-Boo Panda

George W. McConstitutionFucker would like to steal one more election, so has directed his Justice Department to intervene in the Ohio fight to force new voters to vote by provisional ballot if their registration conflicts with some other database (disenfranchisement by typo). Now we'll find out if the Democratic morons who voted for AG Michael Mukasey were right, or if he's just a Republican hack like all the rest. (And remember that Bush is asking the Justice Dept. to do the same thing that they fired all the U.S. Attorneys for refusing to do, bring false charges of voter fraud. There ain't any.)

McCain's circular firing squad aims at Palin: she's "going rogue" and a "diva". McCain faces a Palin insurgency! Teehee.

Another endorsement for Obama: Anchorage Daily News (again, tee hee).

Republican dirty tricks: The Pennsylvania state Republican Party sent out an email to 75,000 Jewish voters saying that if you vote for Obama, there will be a second Holocaust.

Oregon Senator Gordon Smith(R-Pretending to be a Dem This Year) owns a frozen food company that supplies 10% of the nation's frozen vegetables. They irrigated their fields with sewage. Or as Dr. Murphy says at firedoglake, "Gordon Smith's Menu for America: Eat Sh*t And Die". Ewwwwwwwwwww.

If you have the stomach for it, watch the video from the Las Vegas Sun of this angry, fearful and racist group outside a Palin rally. These people are frightening.

And one completely nonpolitical topic: Isiah Thomas OD's on sleeping pills [suicide?], 911 got called and took him to the hospital; then he tried to say it was his 17-year-old daughter who needed help. Except for the local police chief who said, hey, it was him, not her. As the police chief said, "[W]hy they're throwing her under the bus is beyond my ability to understand."

McCain-Palin Rallies: Document the Atrocities

Wow.

Denver, Colorado, October 24, 2008:



Kids pretending to be monkeys, calling Obama a monkey, Obama wears a turban, is a Muslim, a socialist, a communist. Your modern Republican Party.

I Wish There Were Video

But this is a great story, sent by a Cincinnati reader to Ben Smith at Politico:

Upon arriving at the Hamilton County Board of Elections in Cincinnati to vote early today I happened upon some friends of my mother's — three small, elderly Jewish women. They were quite upset as they were being refused admitance to the polling location due to their Obama T-Shirts, hats and buttons. Apparently you cannot wear Obama/McCain gear into polling locations here in Ohio.... They were practically on the verge of tears.

After a minute or two of this a huge man (6'5", 300 lbs easy) wearing a Dale Earnhardt jacket and Bengal's baseball cap left the voting line, came up to us and introduced himself as Mike. He told us he had overheard our conversation and asked if the ladies would like to borrow his jacket to put over their t-shirts so they could go in and vote. The ladies quickly agreed. As long as I live I will never forget the image of these 80-plus-year-old Jewish ladies walking into the polling location wearing a huge Dale Earnhardt racing jacket that came over their hands and down to their knees!

Mike patiently waited for each woman to cast their vote, accepted their many thanks and then got back in line (I saved him a place while he was helping out the ladies). When Mike got back in line I asked him if he was an Obama supporter. He said that he was not, but that he couldn't stand to see those ladies so upset. I thanked him for being a gentleman in a time of bitter partisanship and wished him well.

After I voted I walked out to the street to find my mother's friends surrouding our new friend Mike — they were laughing and having a great time. I joined them and soon learned that Mike had changed his mind in the polling booth and ended up voting for Obama. When I asked him why he changed his mind at the last minute, he explained that while he was waiting for his jacket he got into a conversation with one of the ladies who had explained how the Jewish community, and she, had worked side by side with the black community during the civil rights movements of the '60s, and that this vote was the culmination of those personal and community efforts so many years ago. That this election for her was more than just a vote ... but a chance at history.

Mike looked at me and said, "Obama's going to win, and I didn't want to tell my grandchildren some day that I had an opportunity to vote for the first black president, but I missed my chance at history and voted for the other guy."

Dazed and Confused

HuffPo: McCain Accidentally Agrees: Western Pennsylvania Is Racist

It's kind of sad watching John McCain these days.

Powell to Republicans: Stop Dividing Us, Stop the Negative Campaigning

This is the photograph Colin Powell referred to this morning in his endorsement of Barack Obama. From the transcript of the Meet the Press appearance:

I'm also troubled by not what Sen. McCain says but what members of the party say and it is permitted to be said. Such things as: well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim. Well the correct answer is he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian.

But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America.

Is there something wrong with some seven year old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be President? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop this suggestion -- he's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists' This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother at Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards: Purple Heart, Bronze Star. Showed that he died in Iraq. Gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, didn't have a Star of David. It had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9-11. And he waited until he could go serve his country and he gave his life.

Now we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know but I'm troubled about the fact that within the party we have these kinds of expressions.

Powell was even more pointed in his remarks to the press after the Meet the Press appearance:



This is the brief clip of the crazy Congresswoman, Michelle Bachmann, with her McCarthy-esque claims.

John McCain Sells His Soul

According to today's New York Times, the McCain campaign is raining negative robocalls on voters in swing states.

McCain hired the same firm that Bush hired to make robocalls in the 2000 election about McCain's "interracial child" and his wife's drug addiction.

So it is official, John McCain has sold his soul to the devil.

McCain-Palin Rallies: Document the Atrocities

Report by Al Jazeera television on a Sarah Palin rally in Ohio.

John McCain says he's proud of the people who attend their rallies. Proud of this group? Sheesh.

Here's a compilation of some of the worst of the McCain-Palin idiots:

McCain-Palin Rallies: Document the Atrocities

Johnstown, Pennsylvania, October 11, 2008:

I Don't Want to Hear Anything More About Joe the Plumber

The guy isn't even registered to vote, for crying out loud. And he's not a registered plumber, as far as anyone can tell. And he compared Obama to Sammy Davis Jr. (why not Fred Astaire? Oh yeah, Fred Astaire's white.)

Joe the apathetic cheating racist, more like it.

McCain Plays the Hail Mary Race Card

This is the mailer the McCain campaign is sending out in North Carolina. Did you know that it used to be easy to recognize patriotism, because it always came with a white hand?

The white hand has a long, sad history in North Carolina political history. Remember this ad? (Youtube video link)

Jesse Helms' infamous thirty second commercial showing a pair of white hands crumpling a job rejection letter as a narrator says:

"You needed that job, and you were the best qualified, but they had to give it to a minority, because of a racial quota. Is that really fair? Harvey Gantt says it is. Gantt supports Ted Kennedy's racial quota law that makes the color of your skin more important than your qualifications. Your vote on this issue next Tuesday. For racial quotas, Harvey Gantt. Against racial quotas, Jesse Helms."

McCain's Mob: Inciting Hate on the Campaign Trail

Excellent video from Brave New Films, showing the McCain/Palin campaign for what it really is: a hate crime in the making.

Republicans Were for ACORN Before They Were Against It

John McCain attends ACORN-sponsored conference, March 2006

HuffPo: ACORN: McCain And GOP Used To Be Supporters

Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Texas Governor Rick Perry, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, all have supported ACORN's work and appeared with members of the organization -- all in the past three years.

And now ACORN is the boogeyman, because Republicans don't have any issues to run on. Oh, and don't forget that many of the leaders of ACORN are black. Race-baiting, anyone?

The McCain Campaign of Hate

Politico: An AFP shot from this morning in Virginia Beach.

The state chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, Jeff Frederick, told a group of Virginia volunteers that Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden "both have friends who bombed the Pentagon, that is scary."

That is, of course, a bald-faced lie, and a transparent attempt to once again call Obama a terrorist.

From the Washington Post:

Yesterday, Frederick said he stood by the comparison, even though bin Laden planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon that killed 184 people and Obama was a child and hadn't met Ayers when the Weather Underground planted a bomb at the Pentagon in 1972. No one was hurt in that blast, in which a bomb exploded in a restroom and caused flooding and damage to computer tapes containing classified information.

Ayers did not participate at the Pentagon in the bombing but admitted to involvement in other blasts.

And what of John McCain? How did he respond to this baseless smear, Mr. I'm-Going-To-Run-A-Respectful-Campaign John McCain?

He refused to condemn the remarks.

The video of McCain once again taking the low, hateful road:



John McCain looks smaller and smaller as his campaign sputters to its end. He has no economic plan, so this is all he has left.

McCain Rejects Advice From John Lewis

Another John McCain lie exposed. At the Saddleback Forum in August, McCain was asked which three people were the wisest people he knew, whose advice he would rely upon heavily during his administration. Yesterday John Lewis advised him to pull back from the abyss of stirring racial hatred against Obama, that he and his running mate are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and what did John McCain do? He attacked John Lewis. McCain even put out another racist dogwhistle in his response, in which he claimed that Lewis' criticism is:

...a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans..."

Hardworking means white. Especially in this context, since nearly everyone at a McCain rally who isn't a paid plant is white, and it is white people who are screaming "kill him", "terrorist", and "traitor" at McCain rallies.

McCain-Palin: Racism-R-US.

John Cole: Wise People Suck

McCain-Palin Rallies: Document the Atrocities

Another video of the racist at a McCain rally in Bethlehem, PA, holding an Obama monkey, this one from the line waiting to go in:



hat tip to this diary at dailykos.

McCain-Palin Rallies: Document the Atrocities

Watch CBS Videos Online

cbsnews.com: "A man brought a stuffed monkey doll wearing an Obama sticker to a Palin campaign event in Johnstown, Ohio. Realizing he was caught on camera, he passed it off to a child he didn't know."

More of The Strongsville, Ohio McCain-Palin Rally

Part 2 of McCain-Palin supporters at a rally in Strongsville, Ohio. Includes a woman whose child says of Barack Obama "you need gloves to touch him".