Okay John McCain Top That!

08/29/2008

By Daddy

Did you get a chance to check out “THE SPEECH”?

Barack Obama is Da Man. The brother walked on stage to the cheering of over 74, 000 people last night, and handled it the way it should be handled.

After all the talk of his celebrity, his being too uppity, his being too whatever, the biggest thing that was overlooked last night was his presidential demeanor.

There were those that worried that his speech at Mile High Stadium would make him seem too pompous. Well wrong, wrong, wrong! Barack Obama hit the ball out of the universe with a speech that covered all bases.

Now I did think he was trying to cover a lot of problems we’re having here in America, which as I’ve said before need to be discussed, but overall I think he did a great job.

Now my problem with the Rethuglican’s.

We keep hearing that Barack Obama’s plan will not succeed. They’re pushing that he wants to raise taxes on the middle class (and we know that’s not true). Well I ask you this. If we don’t raise taxes how do we bring this country back to the prominence we once had? How do we take care of the folks that have worked 30 to 40 years and are ready for a comfortable retirement? How do we pay our teachers more so they can focus on their students, and not their Mortgages? How do we put the people of the Gulf Coast back in their neighborhoods? How do we afford to get back and forth to work with the price of gas today? How do we get everyone insured for their health? How can we make sure that all children that do well in school will have a chance for affordable college tuitions? How do we keep jobs here in America and not overseas?

Well you gotta raise taxes. And that’s okay as long as we’re getting something in return.

The Rant # 68,127

I don’t have a problem with companies wanting to make more money. I just have a problem with illegal immigrants coming into this country working for those companies that deem it more important to make a profit than to employ Americans who belong here.

Now please don’t get me wrong my Mexican brothers and sisters. If there is one thing that I strongly believe in is that it is our responsibility as MEN to make the best life we can for our families. You just have to sign zee papers, and get legal, then come on over and share in the fruits of your labors. You can’t deny that if I get caught in Mexico without the proper papers I go directly to jail, and DO NOT pass go!

And besides, if you want the same fruits as the rest of us, you must be in the system and go through the same bureaucratic bullshit as the rest of us!

And I have a problem with a president that keeps saying they are here to do the work Americans won’t do. Now exactly what job would that be? I remember seeing folks in line for jobs and their point was if the farmers paid a decent wage they would have no problem picking fruits and vegetables to make a living.

Remember when working at McDonalds or mowing lawns was a part time or summer income for your teenager? Do you remember when those that chose not to go to college would find a construction company and work their way up as apprentices? No I didn’t think you did.

I have a problem with paying $4.00 for a gallon of gasoline while the oil company makes a profit of over 15 billion dollars in three months, and the price of gas is still going up.

I have a problem with the Gulf Coast just being handled by the individuals that have or had insurance. Katrina left those people devastated. What about the hundreds of thousands that were renting low income housing? Or just plain renters. Where is the help from our government?

Well an inside source told me on the day it happened that this was what they had been waiting for. A way to get those lazy Nigra’s out of the city. And their out!

I have an even worse problem with speculators setting the price for oil on the assumption that something COULD go wrong tomorrow.

I have a problem with calling customer support, and getting a guy in India, instead of one of millions of young folks that put out the money for IT certification, and now can’t find a job.

I have a problem with the invasion of a country that DID NOT attack us.

I have a problem with a guy that wants to be our next president, but feels we should stay in Iraq for as long as it takes.

I have a problem with shelling out 10 million dollars a week for a war that none of these Rethuglican assholes can explain why we're still there losing our children day after day when we know now there are no WMD’s.

I have a problem with the Rethuglican’s for forking out all of this money to Iraq when they, Iraq have an oil surplus of over 79 Billion dollars.

I have a problem with the top 2% of the people in this country living their life as if everything is copacetic, but there are people, Black, and White, and other races still living in poverty in a country that prides itself as a country that takes care of it’s poor, but has no problem interfering with other countries about their human rights.

And I really have a problem with a guy running for president of this country when his chief economic advisor is the architect of the mortgage meltdown! (Phil Graham)

Yes I have a problem with a lot of shit that’s going on here in these United States of America. And my biggest beef is that no one in charge seems to want to do anything about it.

Oh yeah, I have a problem with the Rethuglican’s, make no mistake about it!

Now don’t panic. There are still some things that can be done to insure that these things can be accomplished.

Barack Obama did say one thing that I agree with. We’ll save a helluva lot of money getting out of Iraq. Thank you Jesus!!!!!!!

We’ll gain more tax money from the companies that have moved overseas. Hey you want to use people other than Americans to do your work? That’s fine, but you’re gonna pay out the ass to do it. You know, more taxes, higher tariffs on imports and exports. And the list can go on. I didn’t really catch on to the automakers scheme until I checked out the Olympics in China.

I know you’ve noticed that the automakers seem to have no problem closing plants. They’re closing a plant almost every month.

Well that’s because all the shit cars they can’t sell here, are selling like hotcakes in China, and in other countries around the world. As a matter of fact it’s sort of a status symbol to own one of these American cars that now are being built somewhere other than Detroit.

How doggish is that?

Barack I believe. I believe that given a chance you will do your best for us.

I was listening to comments from other folks after the speech, and most agreed it was a great speech. But the one thing they all had in common was will he really do these things for Americans.

Let me say I believe he will. Leave us not forget who we are as Black folks. We have always had to work harder and longer to achieve the same as White folks. Do you really think that given the chance this brother is not going to do his very best to make good on his ideas? I think not.

There is no way he’ll put us in the position where we will have to wait another 400 years to gain respect.

I believe Barack Obama is our best chance to rid ourselves of the Rethuglican’s at least for the next 8 years. That’s long enough to turn things around, and give people the chance to shore up before the next Rethug takes office.

The brother makes the best point when saying that this is our job to do. We can not want the best for ourselves and not work hard to make it happen.

Ask NOT what your country can do for you, but rather what YOU can do for your country.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

I’m on my way to Minneapolis for the Rethug Convention. Don't worry my Brothers and Sisters. I'm working for AT&T making music not politics!.

I’ll be back on Monday September 8th.


You all have a great and blessed week. PEACE!

Daddy.

Hillary. You Done Good Girl!

8/27/2008
By Daddy.

Well this morning everyone is in agreement that Hillary Clinton hit one out of the ballpark last night at the podium for Barack Obama.

"You haven't worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership," Clinton told an audience packed to overflowing at Denver's Pepsi Center. "No way. No how. No McCain. Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our president." Hillary Clinton.

I watched the speech and I too thought she did a good job. But just what job was she doing? Was she beating the drum for Barack Obama, or simply doing what was right for the Democratic Party?

I felt she was prepping her followers for 2012. It seemed like it was her acceptance speech for the nomination, and all she did was add Barack Obama’s name on the dotted lines.

She talked about nothing different than the 50 or folks that gave speeches before her. Oil, Economy, Health care etc... Now don’t get me wrong. These are the problems that should be discussed. And I have to admit that she did a great job. But I’m not convinced she put her whole heart into it. And rightly so, she is still burning from the primary loss.

But you have to give Hillary Clinton her props. She HAS turned the page for Women’s rights. And it’s high time these ignorant asshole Washington Fuckups pay attention.

Now to be honest I hadn’t paid attention to anything other than the abortion topic. I totally spaced the income problem. I really thought this had been taken care of a long time ago though some sort of bill or law or something. But I was NOT thinking that now in the year 2008 Women were still being shortchanged by Big Brother.

What the hell is wrong with these people? Don’t they know that in most instances Women are better at a lot of things than men? Why is it that the Woman makes less than a man doing the same job, and at times with more seniority? I would say in the high stakes world of business, or in the everyday works of the middle class, the Woman most likely is better prepared. Hell she has to be just to get the grey haired horny bastards to open her resume.

Is the word housewife still in the dictionary? No, now I think the PC term is Stay at Home Mom.

Well in either case those Women should be at least able to get some sort of pension when the children are grown, and out the door, because that’s a hell of a lot of work to do for 20 years.

Wouldn’t it be a trip if it were mandatory for all men to register with social security when their wives became pregnant? At that point the Father would be responsible for paying into this fund so that by the time the children are grown, and moms worn out, at least she would have some compensation.

And then there’s abortion. Now this is a no brainer. The federal government all the way down to local government should just SHUT THE FUCK UP!

How the hell can you even fix your mouth to suggest that a Woman does not have the right to do whatever she wants to her body? Her body! Damn that’s deep. Kind of like slavery isn’t it?

And now the assholes want to keep Women from being able to use their insurance for birth control. But they have no problem getting insurance to pay to keep their dicks hard!

So the more I pay attention to the speeches and topics at the DNC I’m starting to see a pattern here.

The old school white male is still afraid of anyone with more power then themselves. As men we already know the Woman is stronger than we are in so many areas. And if you’re one of those men that could, or would never admit this then you’re probably alone, in jail for domestic violence, or just a fuckup at large.

Before I ramble any further let me say that if Barack Obama had turned out to be just another Washington hack I would be voting for Hillary Clinton.

I’m not voting for him because he’s a Black man. I’m voting for him because he’s got a good rap on the change that is needed in Washington. And I believe it’s time to give the future to the next generation. No I don’t agree with everything Hillary Clinton says, but I agree with most of it. Clinton and Obama are pretty close on the issues. As a matter of fact her campaign was more about him not being ready to lead, rather than differences in their policies.

So I’ll say hurray Hillary for being the stand up human being we always knew you were before the heat of the primaries. I know it took a lot to stand in front of your people and try to convince them that Barack Obama should and will be the next POTUS. And personally I’m hoping he chooses Hillary for a position that will allow her to run with the health care problem. It can be her baby. Do what cha gotta do to get it done girl!

You all have a great and blessed day. PEACE!

Daddy.

Bravo Michelle! Bravo!

08-26-2008
By Daddy

Okay you’ll have to give me a moment to get myself together. I have just finished watching Michelle Obama’s speech at the DNC Monday night. And it blew me away.

Michelle Obama went right for the heart. If you were still on the fence as far as her loyalty to this country, I think there should be no doubt where they stand as a family in this country.

I felt myself actually believing we can overcome. Believing that maybe one day soon we will be seen as equals. Feeling in my heart that this is the time for change. No more rhetoric. Just do it!

I know I’ve said this before, but I along with many friends my age, are old enough to remember not being able to use the “WHITE ONLY” bathrooms, water fountains, restaurants, swimming pools, etc... Old enough to remember being called NIGGER by White folks driving down the street. Having relatives that never left the South that lived damn near the same as they did a hundred years ago. Lynching’s of Black men simply because they were supposed to have looked at a White woman. And the kicker was being called less than a human being. No more than cattle in a pen to be shipped off to slaughter, or worked to death without ever being able to reap the rewards of a job well done. Without ever getting the chance to share in the “American Dream”.

Hey, the government must still renew the voting rights act every few years.

That’s why it's so hard for most Black folks to understand Whites when they say there is no racism in this country. Although we have come so far from those days of Jim Crow, we still are not out of the woods yet.

Just as on CNN last night when the panel was asked to grade Michelle Obama’s speech, Leslie Sanchez a CNN analyst wondered why she chose the dress she was wearing. DUH? I guess she felt that the dress made Michelle Obama an elitist. What kind of shit it that?

Its a shame that after all Black folks have done for this country they still have to prove themselves. But hopefully this will become a thing of the past. Now knowing how many years it took to get this far, maybe it won’t take as long to clear the few hurdles we have left to exstinguish the smoldering embers of racism.

But back to Michelle my belle!

Watching the video I found myself trying to hold back 54 years of resentment towards those who would keep their foot on the neck of Black America. A rushing stream of emotion that no matter how hard you try, you have to feel that at this moment in time we just may have a chance to be an integral part of a nation that has kept us in check like the crazy uncle some choose to keep in the back bedroom.

But still there are those who will not allow themselves to admit that Barack Obama is the right choice for the times we live in. They will not admit that they distrust him because of his color. But then again there are millions that don’t have a problem admitting this.

Come on America. Stand up for righteousness, and in the words of the Godfather of Soul James brown, get on the good foot.

The time is now. There is no time to procrastinate. The Rethugulans (I like that name. I got it from Field Negro) are sending a message that change and hope are fairy tales.

That this man, Barack Obama will take us on a slippery slope. They’re even calling him the Anti-Christ. Yeah no shit! They have a book on it.

Have a great and blessed day. PEACE!

Daddy.

Attempt to Assassinate Barack Obama

08-26-08

By Daddy

Okay here we go.

I guess you could say that our worst fear is trying to come to light.

The racist assholes are out to assassinate Barack Obama.

I heard the first report Monday morning that there was an arrest of a man from Wyoming that tried to get two rifles and two handguns into the hotel where Nancy Pelosi is staying. Supposedly he is in Colorado to hunt. The only problem is that to hunt anything with a rifle in this state you’ll have to wait until October. And now four more people have been arrested trying to accomplish the same thing.

Dumb, dumb.

With the security in place, it’s going to take a lot more thinking to get past the front door with anything more than clothing in your suitcase.

Police are everywhere. There are bomb sniffing dogs. Dope sniffing dogs. There’s the Secret Service. FBI, and Federal police (We have the federal reserve in downtown Denver). Undercover. Overcover. If it’s security, it’s here in Denver.

I have the opportunity to be gigging for AT&T for their delegate parties.

There is a routine check you must go through everyday.
The venue for our events happens to be on the 38th floor of the Grand Hyatt.
First you must pass security to enter the building. Then you must be on a list to enter the elevator area. And you better have current ID with photo. Now you may proceed to the elevator to the 38th floor. When you arrive at the 38th floor you must pass security to leave the elevator area. If you have to go to the restroom, have no fear, security is at the door.

Now you can proceed to set your equipment.

This means the band, the caterers, the wait staff, the chef staff, and any other staff.

Once everything is set and the doors are ready to open, everyone, and I mean everyone must leave the area, and then the dogs come in. They do this type of sweep all day long.

So it seems to me that if you are going to be crazy enough to attempt something like this, you probably should be a little sharper than Barney Fife.

This is security for the everyday person taking part in the convention events. Imagine the security at the Pepsi Center, or Mile High Stadium (true broncos fans refuse to call it INVESCO Field).

As you can see in the photo these guy’s are ready. And this is the second or third team. For the first team there is a unit of combat ready men and women in attire that seems more suited for Bagdad, than Downtown Denver. Fully armed to the teeth, and most likely anxious to use their new fangled equipment, and firearms.

This is what we Black folks have feared all along. Although we see it as a great day in history and for the world for Barack Obama to have come this far in the America we live in, at the same time we knew there would be attempts’ on his life. We knew there are those who see this as the fall of America. Those people that preach of keeping their bloodlines pure.

Of course those same dumb ass people still don’t realize that life began on the continent of Africa. And the only way to keep your bloodlines pure is to have a bit of Blackness in there to make it all good.

You all have a great and blessed day. PEACE!

Daddy.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-totobama27-2008aug27,0,1338409.story

Rantings of a Mad Old Black Man!

08-20-08

By Daddy

This Is Equal?

Okay. This is the way I see it. No one ever thought Barack Obama would go as far as he has. As long as he does the right thing and doesn't go too far, he's okay with us. Yeah right! Now that it's starting to look like he may win this thing, the royal punditry has turned their backs. And I mean all of them.

It was cool in most White households to back the Negro. Almost a Putney Swope moment. (a great movie where no one thinks the Negro will get a vote, so everyone ends up voting for Putney).

Hold on. Wait a minute. I have to stop this now. I can't blame White folks. Because those that feel that way know not what they do. And I will give a hand to the millions of White folks who also recognize it's time for a change. Recognize that the old rules do not apply. Recognize that the last bit of Jim Crow must go! Recognize that we must judge a man by the content of his character, and not the color of his skin.

I teach my children to see the person, not their color. Not their race and not their religion. And for those of you that didn’t know, I’ve been f**ked by more black folks than anyone of any other color or race. (I’m Black by the way). Yes it’s true!

And I also want to give a shout out to all the folks around the world that see a better America with Barack Obama as the POTUS. The people that feel if America can make this change, anything is possible. For the USA to elect a Black president, it sends a message that maybe there is HOPE. Maybe we can get to great foreign policy. Maybe, just maybe we the USA can morph out of this fear based, warmongering, threatening way of dealing with our neighbors around the world.

I thought it was crazy that George Bush stood there on CNN to threaten Russia for taking care of THEIR business, which I’m still not straight on what the hell is going on over there to rate an invasion of their country. But I do know that Bush in no way has the right to suggest anything to any other country on how they do their business.

We invaded a country for no other reason than to steal their oil. And look where it’s gotten us. We’re paying out the ass for oil, and Iraq has a $72,000,000,000.00 oil surplus. Duuuuh!

John McCain

Has anyone but me noticed that no one is making anything of the lies John McCain makes through his commercials, and speeches? So let’s talk about John McCains lack of character. It seems to me that HE is willing to sacrifice everything to become POTUS. Now don’t get me wrong, I know Barack Obama stretches the truth himself, but McCain’s statements and commercials are what the MSM calls false. Well in the hood they’re called LIES!

And to make matters worse people believe this crap.

So ask yourself. If the dude is willing to lie to the American people now, just what would he do as POTUS?

If Barack Obama slips up just once the whole world will be down on him. But John John can say anything, and apparently get away with it. Look at the controversy around Obama not visiting the troops in Germany. He explains why he didn't go, but he was a liar as far as the MSM was concerned. Day after day, after day. And after reporters from all new agencies came out to say McCain was wrong, they still question it.

We all know, or should know that McCain’s latest commercial says Barack Obama will raise taxes on those making $40,000 of less will have their taxes raised.

A Spanish-language radio ad claims the measure Obama supported would have raised taxes on "families" making $42,000, which is simply false. Even a single mother with one child would have been able to make $58,650 without being affected.

The radio ad claims Obama would increase taxes "on the sale of your home." In fact, home-sale profits of up to $500,000 per couple would continue to be exempt from capital gains taxes. Very few sales would see an increase under Obama's proposal to raise the capital gains rate.

A second radio ad, in English, says, "Obama has a history of raising taxes" on middle-class Americans. But that's false. It refers to a vote that did not actually result in a tax increase and could not have done so.
http://geniusofinsanityworld.blogspot.com/2008/08/mccain-lies-about-obama-tax-policy.html

Sorry, but I never heard the brother say that. In fact the way I understand it is people in that range will see a reduction in taxes. And depending on your situation, say if you’re a single taxpayer your taxes may stay the same.

But John McCain? They glaze over it, and that's it. Now I know you may think I'm being Conspiracy Brother but that's what I’m feelin.

Hillary Clinton.

The primary goal of the Democratic National Convention is to nominate and confirm a candidate for President and Vice President, adopt a comprehensive party platform and unify the party. Wikipedia

Ed Rendell comes out to say he's voting for Hillary at the DNC.

Now I know that is what the convention is about. To give delegates the chance to vote for their choice for POTUS. And then that person hands their delegates over the nominee.

We have our presumptive nominee, but Clinton Democrats want to nominate the person who lost the primary? Even worse, there are still a few Clinton folks threatening to vote for John McCain. EEwwwwwww! (Young girl’s response to old man trying to get young girl).

So this tells me they would rather have four more years of the same shit, than vote for a Black man.
Some say I’m paranoid. But what else could this mean?

They keep trying to push the no experience thing on us.

Experience.

What the fu*k. The Bush people said the same thing about John Kerry and look where their experience has taken us. If you haven't been the POTUS you don't have experience. OKAY! It’s pretty plain and simple.Obama is not ready? What makes McCain ready? Is it the fact that he voted for this war in Iraq? Is it that he voted with Bush 95% of the time. Is it that he feels the economy is in good shape? And leave us not forget that Czechoslovakia doesn't exist!

So I think this puts them on a level playing field. That no matter what you have accomplished in your career, this is a new day. It’s your character, and your decision making that will make you successful. With that we would hope the nominee would pick the correct folks for his inner circle.

Now look. I may a crazy MF, but I am not stupid. I know this country can not stay on this track. There is nothing being done about illegal immigration. Our economy is on pace to transform us into a third world country. Our dependence on foreign oil is our downfall. Actually depending on any oil is the real problem.

But it’s been the thing to do for so long, the greed has blinded companies to the fact that renewable, and alternative forms of fuel are the future. We’ll have a better chance of a future with lower levels of carbon monoxide!

General Motors EV1

The EV1 was the first modern production electric vehicle from a major automaker and also the first purpose-built
electric car produced by General Motors (GM) in the United States.
Introduced in 1996, The EV1 electric cars were available in California and Arizona as a lease only, as well as through a Southern Company employee lease program in Georgia, and could be serviced at designated Saturn retailers. They were discontinued after 1999 and subsequently removed from the roads in 2003 by General Motors (except for a few). The car's discontinuation was and remains a very controversial topic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

I don't know about you, but I believe it's time for a change. It's time to move away from the old way of doing things. John McCain is too old. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. It's time to pass the torch to our young people. It's time to trust that we parents have taught our children well! I'm 54 years old. Hell I really don't want to have to worry about this shit any longer. Give it to the one's that will be here in 30 to 40 years to police it. Give it to those who have the stamina to keep up with it. Give it away, Give it away, Give it away YO!

The Polls.

Polls are rough approximations. Over 15% of total population without land lines. The land line users do seem to heavily weighted to the older groups, more likely McCain.While younger tend to be mobile, more likely Obama.

According to Associated Press, more than a quarter of young US adults have only cell phones and don't bother with phones that require plugging in.

The portion of adults with only mobile phones grew by more than two percentage points last year to nearly 12 percent. A quarter of people aged 18 -24 and 29 percent of those aged 25 - 29 only used mobiles. Only two percent of those older than 65 only used mobiles.

One of the things that AP noted was that the trend away from landlines affects those pollsters who rely heavily on random calls to households with wired telephones. So when you hear the results of a poll which suggest that 90 percent of people think Margaret Thatcher should be canonised and 88 percent of people think that national service will solve all the nation's woe's you will know that it is based on a phone poll of landlines.

Black Folks.

And don't get me wrong. If the majority of lazy ass Negros that never vote would get up off their lazy ass's we would be able to vote anyone into office that we wanted. But nooooooooooooooooooo!

Why should I vote? No one will change anything for me. Things will stay the same. No one cares anyway!

You should vote maybe because thousands of Black folks died to get your silly ass the right to vote. Maybe because thousands of Black men died to make sure you would be called a man, and not an animal!

That’s all I have to say on that subject!

Whew!

Okay. I tried to stay away from the political thang for a few days to simmer down. But I'm seeing that it didn't do me any good.

I'm mad. I'm mad that as smart as Barack Obama seems to be, he's acting like a dummy when it comes to the real world. I know the brother wants to run a clean campaign, but enough is enough.

This motherefu**er is lying on you, and you're not standing up for yourself. This motherf**r is slighting your manhood. Slighting your character. Shit man he's slighting your patriotism!! Patriotism? Damn! Did I say that??

It's bad enough that Obama had to relinquish his Blackness, but now his manhood?

“It would be splendid if the man could simply just be in the same way as presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. (No one's asking if he's too white or not white enough.) But we have not arrived at that mountaintop yet and so, in the meantime, Obama must serve as symbol and trope. He must represent his multiethnic constituency and he must represent”.
By Robin Givhan Washington Post Staff Writer

The debate has become absurd. When he plays basketball, is he blacker? Or, as the comedian Bill Maher joked: "He bowled a 37. . . . Is he black enough for you now?" And how about when he tucked in his polo shirt and went for a family bike ride? Was he only kinda-sorta black then? (From magazine article?)

We all know that he would never have gotten this far if he acted like a black man. He would have never gotten this far if he acted like a down brother. It's a miracle he's this far after the world found out he has Jay Z on his iPod. They were going to burn him at the stake once they found out he was listening to Ludacris.

But wait, let's backup a moment.

He's also White, Isn't he?

Daddy.

Obama Counts McCain’s Houses

August 21, 2008, 12:10 pm

By Katharine Q. Seelye AND Kitty Bennett

CHESTER, Va. — If John McCain had tried to play into Barack Obama’s strategy of sounding out of touch with ordinary people, he could not have done better than to say in an interview that he didn’t know how many houses he had.

“I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” Mr. McCain told reporters for The Politico in an

interview in New Mexico on Wednesday. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”

Mr. Obama seized on the remark at his first event here today to bolster his case that Mr. McCain is too rich to understand what’s going on with the economy and had recently said that it was “fundamentally strong.”

Here’s what Mr. Obama said next:
“This puzzled me. I was confused as to what he meant. Then there was another interview, where somebody asked John McCain, ‘How many houses do you have?’ He said, ‘I’m not sure I’ll have to check with my staff.’ True quote! ‘I’m not sure, I’ll have to check with my staff.’ So they asked his staff and he said, ‘at least four.’ ‘At least four.’ Now think about that.

I guess if you think that being rich means you’ve got to make $5 million, and if you don’t know how many houses you have, then it’s not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong. But if you’re like me, and you got one house, or you were like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don’t lose their home, you might have a different perspective.

By the way, the answer is, John McCain has seven homes. There’s just a fundamental gap of understanding between John McCain’s world and what people are going through every single day here in America. You don’t have to be a Nobel Prize-laureate economist, you just have to have a little bit of a sense of what ordinary people are going through to understand that we can’t afford eight more years or four more years or one more year of the failed economic policies that George Bush has put in place.”

For the record, Mr. Obama paid $1.65 million for his Chicago home and an adjacent parcel in 2005.
Mr. Obama was speaking to a group of perhaps 150 people at an outdoors town-hall meeting, under the shade of tall pines here at John Tyler Community College.

Mr. Obama returned to the subject later in an answer to a woman who asked him what he would do for poor people. He said that among other things he would expand the mortgage deduction beyond people who itemize their taxes.
“John McCain, with those homes, they get a mortgage deduction, up to $1 million,” he said. (The Obama plan would give a 10 percent tax credit on up to $8,000 of mortgage interest payments to households who take the standard deduction. The campaign estimates that 10 million homeowners would benefit from this proposal.)

The McCain campaign quickly fired back at Mr. Obama’s remarks, calling them a “personal attack.” Brian Rogers, a spokesman, issued this statement: “Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses? Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people “cling” to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans?

“The reality is that Barack Obama’s plans to raise taxes and opposition to producing more energy here at home as gas prices skyrocket show he’s completely out of touch with the concerns of average Americans.”

Campaigning with Mr. Obama today is Gov. Tim Kaine, who also hit the theme of Mr. McCain’s houses early this morning on CNN. “I understand that Senator McCain was asked yesterday this question, ‘How many houses do you own?,’ and he couldn’t answer that question,” Mr. Kaine said. “He couldn’t count high enough, apparently, to even know how many houses he owns.”

The Obama campaign also quickly cobbled together a

TV ad for a national cable buy about the McCain homes, juxtaposed with residents dealing with foreclosure. It estimates that Mr. McCain owns seven homes, with a total worth of $13 million.

Now, two major labor organizations and Brave New Films teamed up earlier this week to

produce a Web film that intersperses shots of some of those properties with the tale of a woman who lost her home in a mortgage foreclosure.
Mr. McCain’s Senate financial disclosures do not list these properties among his assets, because, according to public records, the homes and condominiums are in the name of a corporation trust listing his wife Cindy, the heiress to a beer distributorship whose worth is estimated to be anywhere from $35 million to $100 million.

Among those properties:

*Their ranch in Sedona, Ariz., where Mr. McCain is spending some down time this weekend, and its guest house and parcels, is valued at $1,766,440. (An Architectural Digest

spread a few years back offers a glimpse.)

*In Phoenix, two adjacent condos with a price tag of $4.7 million in 2006.

*In Scottsdale, Mrs. McCain also owns the Princess Medical Center, valued at $14 million, but this is not a residential property.

*In Coronado, Calif., a condominium owned by Mrs. McCain’s “Dream Catcher Family” corporation is valued, according to recent

tax assessments, at $2.7 million. And records show another condo there as well.
In La Jolla, Calif., Mrs. McCain’s trust owns another condo.

The couple also have a home in Arlington, Va., another condominium valued at $847,800 this year, according to public records.

Stephanie Tubb Jones, 58, Dies; U.S. Representative

By DENNIS HEVESI

Published: August 20, 2008

Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first African-American woman elected to the House of Representatives from Ohio and a leader in the fight against predatory lending practices, died Wednesday. She was 58.

The cause was a ruptured brain aneurysm that Ms. Tubbs Jones suffered Tuesday, Eileen Sheil, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland Clinic, which owns the Huron Hospital in East Cleveland where the congresswoman died, told The Associated Press.

Ms. Tubbs Jones, a Democrat, was in her fifth term as representative of the 11th Congressional District, which includes most of the east side of Cleveland. Two years ago, she was re-elected with 83 percent of the vote. Before her first election to Congress, in 1998, she had been the chief prosecutor for Cuyahoga County in Ohio.

Considered a liberal, Ms. Tubbs Jones was a co-sponsor of legislative efforts to broaden health care coverage for low- and middle-income people and of programs supporting the re-entry of convicts into their communities. She was also the author of legislation requiring certification for mortgage brokers and stiffer penalties for predatory loans.

In June, Ms. Tubbs Jones voted against emergency supplemental financing for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I feel it important that we have a plan for a timely redeployment of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan before we continue funding what has become a seemingly endless war,” she said at the time.

When Congress officially ratified President Bush’s re-election in January 2005, Ms. Tubbs Jones joined Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, in initiating a rare challenge to what has historically been a polite formal ceremony. They were objecting to accepting Ohio’s 20 electoral votes for Mr. Bush, citing voting irregularities in the state.

Instead of holding a courteous joint session to certify the election, lawmakers were forced to retreat to their separate chambers for two hours of debate. In the end, the House voted 267 to 31 against the challenge; in the Senate, the vote was 74 to 1.

Stephanie Tubbs was born in Cleveland on Sept. 10, 1949. She graduated from Case Western Reserve University in 1971 and received her law degree there three years later.

From 1976 to 1979, she was an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor. In 1981, she won election as a Cleveland Municipal Court judge, and 10 years later she was appointed chief prosecutor.

As chief prosecutor, Ms. Tubbs Jones was at the center of a controversy in 1998 when she refused to reopen an investigation into the 1954 murder of the wife of Dr. Sam Sheppard, dismissing new DNA evidence that Dr. Sheppard’s supporters said would have exonerated him.

The case had received nationwide coverage in the 1950s. Dr. Sheppard spent 10 years in prison before the Supreme Court ruled that his trial had been prejudiced by publicity. He was acquitted at a second trial, in 1966, and died in 1970. With the new evidence, Dr. Sheppard’s son was seeking to collect damages on behalf of his father. Ms. Tubbs Jones argued that the new DNA results would be inadmissible because the samples were too old.

Ms. Tubbs Jones’s husband of 27 years, Mervyn L. Jones Sr., died in 2003. She is survived by her son, Mervyn II.

Life is a Bistro

The Denver Area’s Newest Culinary Delight

8/20/2008

Good day, good day!

I had to mention the opening of a new and truly delicious restaurant owned by my little brother and his wife, Arlen, and Amy Felsen.

When you're looking for a casual spot to grab a bite to eat, but you want terrific food, head to Arlen’s American Bistro at Castle Pines Parkway. It's a cozy, friendly gem you'll treasure.

The spot opened a couple of week’s ago for breakfast and lunch only, but starting this
week dinner is on the menu.

I was invited to an invitation only trial dinner, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Tucked in a corner at the Safeway Center at I-25 and Castle Pines Parkway, Arlen’s American Bistro is the perfect spot for an early breakfast, with great feel and ambience. And a great place for a business power lunch or romantic dinner.

Serving up classic American fare with a twist, Arlen’s American Bistro aims to combine style and consistency, along with great food thanks to Chef Palance Bradshaw, and Chef Jason Traurig working it out in the kitchen.

This is not just another new restaurant in the metro area. The décor is minimalist-chic, but the staff, along with owners Amy, and Arlen makes it a true delight for an evening out for a great meal.

Breakfast includes a variety of options. Omelets, meat and egg combos. Eggs Benedict
(personally my favorite), to biscuits and gravy, killer pancakes, and a great selection of fresh fruits.

Lunch will get you salads, sandwiches, pastas and burgers.

Now on to Dinner.

After you make your selection of wines by the glass, carafe, or bottle or cold beers from the extensive menu, enjoy it in one of the big comfortable booths that line the dining room.

The dinner menu features elegant comfort fare like a 6oz. grilled chicken breast, with mushroom Marsala wine sauce, creamy lemon parsley orzo. Or try the baby back ribs, served with coleslaw, and sweet potato fries. And then there’s the buffalo meatloaf. I didn’t try the buffalo but the guests that did were raving about it!

I decided on the Flat Iron steak.

It was a lean cut at about 10-12 oz. With rosemary garlic mashed potatoes, along with a great salad made with fresh baby spinach, red onions, diced green apple, walnuts, and raspberry vinaigrette. And I must say, the steak was prepared to perfection.

Arlen’s American Bistro fills a niche and knows how to please the palate - if you like flavorful, seasonal, quality ingredients prepared with flair and interesting twists.

If you're in the neighborhood and want to grab a bite on a moment's notice, give it a whirl.

But no matter where you’re located in the Denver Metro area, it’s worth the drive to visit Arlen’s American Bistro. Amy and Arlen are truly a blessing. Bon’appetite!



Arlen’s American Bistro
562 E. Castle Pines Parkway
303-688-1107


Ya’ll have a great and blessed day. PEACE! Daddy.

Hannity Defends Ted Nugent's Death Threats on Obama

By Steve Benen
Posted on August 28, 2007, Printed on August 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//60922/

This post, written by Steve Benen, originally The Carpetbagger Report

As a rule, writing about Ted Nugent is a bit like writing about Ann Coulter -- they're both ridiculous clowns who say stupid things to get attention. My better instincts tell me to ignore them.

But once in a while, there's a reason to highlight their stupidity. Take Ted Nugent's latest outburst, for example.

"I was in Chicago last week, I said, 'Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, you punk!' Obama, he's a piece of sh*t and I told him to suck on my machine gun! Let's hear it for them. I was in New York and I said, 'Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.' And since I'm in California, how about Barbara Boxer? She might want to suck on my machine gun! Hey, Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these, you worthless whore!"

First, let's keep the context in mind. Nugent was something of a star in the '70s, but more recently, he's become a proud Republican activist who, oddly enough, routinely appears on Fox News, writes for the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and has even been recruited to run for public office under the GOP flag. (Now would, of course, be the ideal time for Bill O'Reilly to remind us that Daily Kos is a "hate site" because a few anonymous commenters wrote some intemperate remarks.)

Second, Nugent's remarks actually made the rounds fairly quickly. I naively expected conservatives to respond by a) ignoring Nugent's comments; or b) gingerly distancing themselves from the nut. I didn't expect Sean Hannity to defend Nugent and excuse the borderline-threatening remarks, but that's exactly what he did on Friday night. (via Digby)

Oh my.

Realistically, I think it's fair to say that if a Democratic activist encouraged four Republican senators to suck on machine-gun barrels, while calling the lawmakers a "piece of sh*t," a "worthless bitch," and a "worthless whore," we probably wouldn't be hearing from that activist again for a while. For that matter, no one with any kind of audience would defend the comments, and the activist would soon be persona non grata in progressive circles.

But this is a reminder that in conservative circles, there is no line to be crossed. There are no limits, and there are no consequences.

Post Script: By the way, this was debunked quite a while ago, but Hannity's argument that Obama's comments about the war in Afghanistan are somehow comparable to Nugent's lunacy is truly insane. Hannity is just too dumb for his own good.

On the August 19 edition of Fox News' Hannity's America, host Sean Hannity asserted that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) was "bashing America" and "accus[ing] U.S. soldiers of killing innocent Afghani civilians" during an August 13 campaign appearance in Nashua, New Hampshire. In fact, as the video, which Hannity aired, makes clear, Obama criticized the shortage of troops in Afghanistan, saying: "We've got to get the job done there [in Afghanistan] and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."

As Media Matters for America noted in response to Hannity's earlier mischaracterizations of Obama's comments, U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan -- and accounts of resulting civilian casualties -- have been widely reported in the media and have reportedly provoked criticism from Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a British commander stationed there. Additionally, as the Associated Press reported in a "Fact Check" responding to conservative attacks on Obama, "Western forces have been killing civilians at a faster rate than the insurgents." Further, in a July 7 article on NATO and U.S. air strikes reported to have killed more than 100 Afghan civilians, Reuters cited the assessment of military analysts that "a shortage of ground troops means commanders often turn to air power."

The mind reels.

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.

© 2008 All rights reserved.

Rantings of a Mad Old Black Man!

08-20-08
By Daddy

This Is Equal?

Okay. This is the way I see it. No one ever thought Barack Obama would go as far as he has. As long as he does the right thing and doesn't go too far, he's okay with us. Yeah right! Now that it's starting to look like he may win this thing, the royal punditry has turned their backs. And I mean all of them.

It was cool in most White households to back the Negro. Almost a Putney Swope moment. (a great movie where no one thinks the Negro will get a vote, so everyone ends up voting for Putney).

Hold on. Wait a minute. I have to stop this now. I can't blame White folks. Because those that feel that way know not what they do. And I will give a hand to the millions of White folks who also recognize it's time for a change. Recognize that the old rules do not apply. Recognize that the last bit of Jim Crow must go! Recognize that we must judge a man by the content of his character, and not the color of his skin.

I teach my children to see the person, not their color. Not their race and not their religion. And for those of you that didn’t know, I’ve been f**ked by more black folks than anyone of any other color or race. Yes it’s true.

And I also want to give a shout out to all the folks around the world that see a better America with Barack Obama as the POTUS. The people that feel if America can make this change, anything is possible. For the USA to elect a Black president, it sends a message that maybe there is HOPE. Maybe we can get to great foreign policy. Maybe, just maybe we the USA can morph out of this fear based, warmongering, threatening way of dealing with our neighbors around the world.

I haven’t been a big reader as of late. But I read as much news as possible. But what I do know is that there has been fighting, and killing, and wars in the Middle East for thousands of years. I felt the Bush people did not do their homework.

1098 - 1291
The Crusades: Two Centuries of Holy War

Aug. 17, 2004 · In the late 11th century, the Pope of Rome declares a crusade to seize Jerusalem from the Arabs, who have held the Holy Land for centuries. In just a few years, European knights seize the city, slaughtering most of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants and launching two centuries of holy war.
1453 - 1683
The Rise of the Ottoman Empire

Aug. 18, 2004 · Constantinople falls to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Ottoman sultans dominate the Islamic world -- ruling over a region stretching from Iran to Morocco. The Ottoman Empire becomes the most powerful state in the Mediterranean, seizing European land in the Balkans and Hungary and twice laying siege to Vienna.

1783 - 1912
Europe Carves Up the Middle East

Aug. 19, 2004 · In the midst of the French Revolution, Napoleon seizes Egypt in 1798, setting in motion century-long European scramble for the Middle East. Eventually, the British would take Egypt, Sudan and the small states of the Persian Gulf. France would seize Algeria and Morocco. And Arab resistance to European encroachment would prompt much bloody violence.
1914 - 1936
World War I and its Aftermath

Aug. 20, 2004 · World War I sees Europe complete the seizure of the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire, an ally of Germany, is crushed by Britain and France. The territories of Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine fall into European hands. The French and British draw the borders of the modern Middle East, and the League of Nations sanctions their domination of the region.
1945 - 1973
The Rise of the U.S. in the Middle East

Aug. 23, 2004 · As World War II ends, the United States becomes the great outside power in the Middle East, with three main concerns: Persian Gulf oil; support and protection of Israel, founded in 1948; and containment of the Soviet Union. The goals prove difficult to manage, especially through the rise of Arab nationalism, two major Arab-Israeli wars and an Arab oil embargo.

1979 - 2003
The Clash with Islam

Aug. 24, 2004 · In 1979, Iran's Islamic Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan foreshadow a rise in Islamic radicalism. Violence intensifies, with the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf war. By the mid-1990s, America faces a new enemy: Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. After the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. involvement in the Middle East is deeper than ever.

False Pretenses

Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-SmithJanuary 23, 2008

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.
Read the rest of the story at:

http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/?gclid=CKnw95aKn5UCFQUNIgodZGt8aQ

I thought it was crazy that George Bush stood there on CNN to threaten Russia for taking care of THEIR business, which I’m still not straight on what the hell is going on over there to rate an invasion of their country. But I do know that Bush in no way has the right to suggest anything to any other country on how they do their business.

We invaded a country for no other reason than to steal their oil. And look where it’s gotten us. We’re paying out the ass for oil, and Iraq has a $72,000,000,000.00 oil surplus. Duuuuh!

John McCain

Has anyone but me noticed that no one is making anything of the lies John McCain makes through his commercials, and speeches? Now don’t get wrong, I know Barack Obama stretches the truth himself, but McCain’s statements and commercials are what the MSM calls false. Well in the hood they’re called LIES!

And to make matters worse people believe this crap.

See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/19/obama-to-mccain-dignify-y_n_119798.html

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/big_news_orgs_fail_to_label_mc.php

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/01/18/mccain-lies-his-head-off-new-york-times-asleep-at-swich.aspx

And the list goes on, and on.

If Barack Obama slips up just once the whole world will be down on him. But John John can say anything, and get away with it. Look at the controversy around Obama not visiting the troops in Germany. He explains why he didn't go, but he was a liar as far as the MSM was concerned. Day after day, after day. And after reporters from all new agencies came out to say McCain was wrong, they still question it.

We all know, or should know that McCain’s latest commercial says Barack Obama will raise taxes on those making $40,000 of less will have their taxes raised. Sorry, but the brother never said that. In fact the way I understand it is people in that range will see a reduction in taxes. And depending on your situation, your taxes may stay the same. But will not go up.

See what I mean? But John McCain? They glaze over it, and that's it. Now I know you may think I'm being Conspiracy Brother but that's what I’m feelin.

Hillary Clinton.

Now Hillary Clinton's people are voting for her at the DNC. Ed Rendell comes out to say he's voting for Hillary. Now I know that is what the convention is about. To give delegates the chance to vote for their choice for POTUS. But something smells bad here. Clinton supporters are still crying foul without a leg to stand on.

Claiming popular vote. But the rules say delegate count. I will be the first to say get rid of the delegate count, and the electorate, and may the best person with the most votes win.

We have our presumptive nominee, but Clinton Democrats are going to vote for the person who lost the primary? Even worse, they're threatening to vote for John McCain. EEwwwwwww! (young girls response to old man trying to get young girl).

So this tells me they would rather have four more years of the same shit, than vote for a Black man.

Some say I’m paranoid. But what else could this mean?

Now look. I may a crazy MF, but I am not stupid. I know this country can not stay on this track. There is nothing being done about illegal immigration. Our economy is on pace to transform us into a third world country.

If we are truly looking for a leader to get us out of the shit we're in - if we're truly trying to do the right thing, why would we not vote for the person that won? Because the wrong person won!!!!

Like I said, it was okay when Barack Obama was just a novelty, but now that he’s deep within the mix everything changes. It’s what we Black folk know very well. "You can look at it, but you can't have it".

I don't know about you, but I believe it's time for a change. It's time to move away from the old way of doing things. John McCain is too old. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. It's time to pass the torch to our young people. It's time to trust that what we as parents have taught our children is instilled in them.

I'm 54 years old. Hell I really don't want to have to worry about this shit any longer. Give it to the one's that will be here in 30 to 40 years to police it. Give it to those who have the stamina to keep up with it. Give it away, Give it away, Give it away YO!

The Polls.

A dividing line shows up in this poll, according to the analysis by Mr. Cooper and Ms. Sussman:

Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was trusted more by voters to handle their top concern, the economy. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed said they were confident that Mr. Obama would make the right decisions on the economy, compared with 54 percent who expressed confidence that Mr. McCain would. When it came to foreign policy, the image was inverted: 66 percent expressed confidence in Mr. McCain to make the right decisions, and 55 percent in Mr. Obama.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/nytcbs-poll-a-dead-heat/

Today I came home from work, and the news folks were pushing the fact that McCain was now leading Barack Obama by 5 points. It didn't matter that he was ahead 5 points in a poll other than who would you want as your president. "McCain is ahead in the polling of people who want the ice cream man to make a comeback". GeeeZZZZZZ!

My wife wants to know who it is they’re polling. She has never had a call to be polled in her entire life.

And what they don’t tell you is that you can only be polled if you have a land line. Well there are millions of young people in this country that do not have land lines, and they’re voting for Barack Obama. So this reason may be his saving grace.

Now when Barack Obama won the primary I was up front that he not choose Hillary Clinton as his V.P.

Not because I don’t like her but, if he is truly talking about distancing us from the old Washington, there is no way he could pick her. But through the MSM it’s been beaten into our minds that he can’t win without her. And he probably won’t.

Experience.

What the fuck. The Bush people said the same thing about John Kerry and look where their experience has taken us.

If you haven't been the POTUS you don't have experience. OKAY! It’s pretty plain and simple.Obama is not ready. What makes McCain ready? We see what he's ready for. He immediately jumped in the fray around Russia, and Georgia. Oh yeah I forgot he and the Georgian president talk often.

This man voted 95% of the time with George Bush. He wants to keep the Bush tax breaks. He wanted to stay in Iraq until the Iraq folks sided with Obama. Then McCain claimed that he could get the troops out sooner. Dumb ass! That’s all I have to say on this matter.

Black Folks.

Now don't get me wrong. If the majority of lazy ass niggahs that never vote would get up off their lazy ass's we would be able to vote anyone into office that we wanted. But nooooooooooooooooooo!

I got to have my Play station. I got to have my 40. I got to have my blunt. Why should I vote? No one cares anyway!

You should vote maybe because thousands of Black folks died to get your silly ass the right to vote. Maybe because thousands of Black men died to make sure you would be called a man, and not an animal!

Whew!

Okay. I tried to stay away from the political thang for a few days to simmer down. But I'm seeing that it didn't do me any good.

I'm mad. I'm mad that as smart as Barack Obama seems to be, he's acting like a dummy when it comes to the real world. I know the brother wants to run a clean campaign, but enough is enough.

This motherefu**er is lying on you, and you're not standing up for yourself. This motherf**r is slighting your manhood. Slighting your character. Shit man he's slighting your patriotism!! Patriotism? Damn! Did I say that??

It's bad enough that Obama had to relinquish his Blackness, but now his manhood? We all know that he would never have gotten this far if he acted like a true black man. He would have never gotten this far if he truly acted like a down brother. Somebody's White folks would be too afraid of that.

It's a miracle he's this far after the world found out he has Jay Z on his iPod. They were going to burn him at the stake once they found out he was listening to Ludacris.

But let's backup a moment.

He's also White, Isn't he?

Daddy.

The Smear Gap

Aug 18, 2008 Updated: 5:21 p.m. ET

This is hardly the nastiest campaign in recent memory. But it's not shaping up as the "civil" contest that both candidates promised either. Instead, we're seeing the emergence of a "smear gap". John McCain making stuff up about Barack Obama, and Obama trying to figure out how hard he should hit back.

As usual, news organizations are deeply afraid to say that one side is more negative than the other. Doing so sounds "unfair." It's much easier, and less controversial, to say that "both candidates" are being negative. That would be "balanced", but also untrue.

One of the wonders of the Web is that it's now possible for neutral observers to determine the truth or falsity of various attacks, and to have that information instantly available to anyone. The best arbiter is factcheck.org, which is sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania (Disclosure: Newsweek.com has a partnership with factcheck.org). If you don't believe me about the smear gap, check their analyses of campaign ads.

Obama has negative ads airing in more than a dozen states below the radar of the national media. One ad, in Ohio, links McCain to the 8,200 lost jobs at DHL, the German-owned overnight delivery service. That goes too far. McCain's support for a merger involving DHL hardly makes him culpable for the job loss. But overall, and to his credit, Obama has not engaged in anywhere near the number of falsehoods as McCain.

For about a month, McCain's campaign has been resorting to charges that are patently false. When Obama traveled abroad in July, to positive reviews, McCain decided he had to make attack ads that went far beyond the norm. In the past, plainly deceptive ads were the province of the Republican National Committee or the Democratic National Committee or independent committees free to fling mud that didn't bear the fingerprints of candidates. But not this time. These smears come directly from the candidate.

First, a McCain ad charged that Obama was responsible for higher gas prices, which was not just false but absurd. Next, an ad said Obama had cancelled his trip to visit wounded soldiers in Germany because he couldn't bring the press along. I was in Germany at the time, and as every reporter knew, the visit to the military hospital was never going to be open, not even to a press pool. It appeared on no press schedules. Obama had cancelled the visit when it was clear that the Pentagon viewed it as political. The charge was simply untrue.

The now famous Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad, accusing Obama of being a celebrity, wasn't false, just dopey. But it detracted attention from a string of false McCain spots on taxes. One ad said that Obama would raise taxes on electricity. Nope, not in Obama's plan. Another said 23 million small-business owners would pay higher taxes under Obama. Factcheck.org found that the "vast majority" of small-business owners would pay the same in taxes as they do now, and "many" would pay less.

An ad saying Obama had voted for a bill raising taxes, for families making more than $42,000 a year, was found to be "false." And McCain's consistent claim that Obama would "raise taxes on the middle class"--a major theme of his campaign--is "simply false," according to this neutral policy center. In truth, under Obama's plan, families earning less than $150,000 a year would get a tax cut, and only those making more than $250,000 would see their taxes rise. Maybe by the time the Democratic Congress got done with it, Obama's tax program would look different. It's reasonable to speculate that Democrats will raise taxes.

But the McCain ads weren't talking about that, they were talking about Obama's plan, which is easily accessed on his Web site. McCain's description of his opponent's plan was and is untrue. This isn't opinion, it's fact.

McCain's campaign theme is that he puts the country first and Obama puts himself above his country. It's understandable why this son and grandson of admirals--who has served his country in one way or another since he was 18-years-old, who has never been on a private payroll beyond that of his beer distributor father-in-law--would see himself as someone who puts "America first." He has been a largely honorable public servant for 54 years, and it's acceptable within the confines of sharp debate to portray his opponent as a self-regarding celebrity.

But when he resorts to these kinds of falsehoods, and casts such aspersions on his opponent's patriotism, John McCain is no longer putting his country first. If he were, he would recognize that the interests of the nation require a relatively truthful campaign. To fulfill his image of himself, McCain should stop lying about his opponent. For a man with his claims to honor and integrity, that's not too much to ask.

Book on Obama hopes to repeat anti-Kerry feat

updated 10:57 p.m. MT, Tues., Aug.
Author who launched Swift Boat attacks in '04 takes aim at '08 nominee

WASHINGTON - In the summer of 2004 the conservative gadfly Jerome R. Corsi shot to the top of the best-seller lists as co-author of “Unfit for Command,” the book attacking Senator John Kerry’s record on a Vietnam War Swift boat that began the larger damaging campaign against Mr. Kerry’s war credentials as he sought the presidency.

Almost exactly four years after that campaign began, Mr. Corsi has released a new attack book painting Senator Barack Obama, the Democrats’ presumed presidential nominee, as a stealth radical liberal who has tried to cover up “extensive connections to Islam” — Mr. Obama is Christian — and questioning whether his admitted experimentation with drugs in high school and college ever ceased.

Significant parts of the book, whose subtitle is “Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,” have already been challenged as misleading or false in the days since its debut on Aug. 1. Nonetheless, it is to make its first appearance on The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction hardcovers this Sunday — at No. 1. Hype machine in overdrive

The book is being pushed along by a large volume of bulk sales, intense voter interest in Mr. Obama and a broad marketing campaign that has already included 100 author interviews with talk radio hosts across the country, like Sean Hannity and G. Gordon Liddy, Mr. Corsi said on Tuesday.
The publisher is Threshold Editions, a division of Simon & Schuster whose chief editor is Mary Matalin, the former Republican operative turned publisher-pundit. And it is a significant, early success for Ms. Matalin’s three-year-old imprint, which is also planning to publish the memoirs of Karl Rove, President Bush’s longtime political guru.

Threshold says it has undertaken an extensive printing effort for anticipated demand, with 475,000 copies of “The Obama Nation” produced so far.

“The goal is to defeat Obama,” Mr. Corsi said in a telephone interview. “I don’t want Obama to be in office.”

He said he was planning to aid several conservative groups that intend to run advertisements against Mr. Obama this fall, though he would not name them.

Mr. Corsi, who has over the years also written critically about Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s probable Republican opponent, said he supported the Constitution Party presidential nominee, Chuck Baldwin, and had not been in touch with McCain aides. He called his reporting on Mr. Obama, which he stands by, “investigative,” not prosecutorial.

Effective means of attack

Ms. Matalin said in an interview that the book “was not designed to be, and does not set out to be, a political book,” calling it, rather, “a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that.” She said she was unaware of efforts to link it to any anti-Obama advertising.

In its timing, authorship and style of reporting, the book is strikingly reminiscent of the one Mr. Corsi wrote with John O’Neill about Mr. Kerry, “Unfit for Command,” which included various accusations that were ultimately undermined by news reports pointing out the contradictions. (Some critics of Mr. Kerry quoted in the book had earlier praised his bravery in incidents they were now asserting he had fabricated; one had earned a medal for bravery in a gun battle he accused Mr. Kerry of concocting.)

But books like “Unfit for Command,” which remained for some 12 weeks on the Times best-seller list, and, now, “The Obama Nation,” have become an effective and favored delivery system for political attacks. There have been anti-Clinton (both Bill and Hillary) and anti-Bush books too numerous to name. The sensational findings in these books, true or dubious, can quickly come to dominate the larger political discussion in the news media, especially on cable television and the less readily detectible confines of talk radio and partisan Web sites.

Fact-checking the books can require extensive labor and time from independent journalists, whose work often trails behind the media echo chamber.

Misleading accusations

Web sites on the left have begun poring over Mr. Corsi’s latest book. Media Matters, which is run by David Brock, a former right-wing journalist who wrote a classic of the attack genre, “The Real Anita Hill,” has been particularly aggressive in fact-checking the book, and its press releases on inaccuracies in the book have gotten some attention on cable television.

Several of the book’s accusations, in fact, are unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate.
For instance, Mr. Corsi writes that Mr. Obama had “yet to answer” whether he “stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended to his law school days or beyond.” “How about in the U.S. Senate?” Mr. Corsi asks.

But Mr. Obama, who admitted to occasional marijuana and cocaine use in his high school and early college years, wrote in his memoir that he had “stopped getting high” when he moved to New York in the early 1980s. And in 2003 The State Journal-Register of Springfield, Ill., quoted him responding to a question of his drug use by saying, “I haven’t done anything since I was 20 years old.”

In an interview, Mr. Corsi said Mr. Obama’s word was not to be trusted because “self-reporting, by people who have used drugs, as to when they stopped is inherently unreliable.”

Reprising Rev. Wright

In exploring Mr. Obama’s denials that he had been present for the more incendiary sermons of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Mr. Corsi cites a report on the conservative Web site NewsMax.com that Mr. Obama had attended a sermon on July 22, 2007, in which Mr. Wright blamed “the ‘white arrogance’ of America’s Caucasian majority for the world’s suffering, especially the oppression of blacks.”

Mr. Obama, however, was giving a speech in Florida that afternoon, and his campaign reported he had not attended Mr. Wright’s church that day.

William Kristol, a columnist for The New York Times, had cited the same report in a column, and issued a correction. “There is a dispute about the date, and Kristol chose to side with Obama,” Mr. Corsi said. “We can nitpick the date to death,” he added, saying his “fundamental point” was Mr. Obama’s close association with someone ascribing to “black liberation theology.”

Mr. Corsi described most of the critiques of his book as “nitpicking,” like a contradiction of his claim that Mr. Obama had failed to dedicate his book “Dreams of My Father” to his family; Mr. Obama dedicated the book to several family members, in the introduction.

Mr. Corsi called the Media Matters critique inconsequential because it was advancing a liberal, political agenda.

Activists take on ‘echo chamber’

Media Matters was created in part to answer a conservative “echo chamber” — one that liberal activists say they have still yet to match — that gives books like Mr. Corsi’s extra bounce.
“There’s just no doubt that in terms of longer-term infrastructure, there’s more out there on the right than there is on the left,” said Cliff Schecter, author of a liberal attack book on Mr. McCain, “The Real McCain,” which, with 35,000 copies in print, did not make the Times bestseller list.

Mr. Obama’s campaign has yet to weigh in heavily on Mr. Corsi’s accusations. It appears to face the classic decision between the risk of publicizing the claims by addressing them and the risk of letting them sink into the public debate with no response.

“This book is nothing but a series of lies that were long ago discredited, written by an individual who was discredited after he wrote a similar book to help George Bush and Dick Cheney get re-elected four years ago,” said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Mr. Obama. “The reality is that there are many lie-filled books like this in the works cobbled together from the Internet to make money off of a presidential campaign.”

Several Democrats associated with Mr. Kerry’s campaign in 2004 said in interviews Tuesday that they were comfortable so far with Mr. Obama’s more muted response to the book, which has not showed up yet in television advertisements.

Even Mr. Corsi said this book did not have what “Unfit for Command” had: a built-in interest group, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, to run advertisements against its target.

While he said he thought it was a certainty that he would be “assisting in the creation of ads in the fall,” he did not say what he believed their content would be.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26168590/

Copyright © 2008 The New York Times


Jerome Corsi, co-author of the anti-John Kerry book "Unfit For Command," claims that Barack Obama has covered up his ties to Islam — Obama is a Christian — and glossed over his drug use — Obama says he "stopped getting high" in the 1980s.
NYT: Anti-Obama book follows '04 script