Obama, Patriotism and Me

One of the reasons to vote for someone for president—perhaps the key reason, in fact—is good judgment. Hillary Clinton may have taken a lot of flak for her "3 a.m. phone call" ad during the Democratic primaries in 2008, but she was basically right: Ideologically, there wasn't that much distance between Obama and Clinton, which meant that a big part of any liberal's decision that year was deciding which candidate had the better judgment. We knew how both of them felt about health care reform and climate change and education policy, but what would they do when something came up that no one could predict? How would they handle a Katrina or a 9/11?

I was one of many who ended up voting for Obama on the grounds that his judgment seemed a bit sounder. Maybe not as toughminded as Hillary, but just as smart and, in foreign affairs, seemingly a little more willing to look at the world with fresh eyes and resist the siren call of intervention at every turn. So how's that working out for me?
Kevin Drum, Mother Jones

Are Americans Going to Hell?

Are Americans Going to Hell?

Almost daily subscribers to the progressive literature can enjoy revelations of malfeasance in high places. Graft, corruption and murder are so commonplace to escape notice.

There is where the information stops. At most we will get an address or a phone number where one can voice a complaint.

Who acts on this? Nobody. Most likely the telecom company will report the caller to law enforcement authorities.

Essentially, no one deals with the real problems that beset the country.

It may benefit the reader to devote a few minutes per day to this issue. How can we put the perpetrators into the jails or onto the gallows?

I address these notions and will be glad to swap ideas on the subject.

People who share the program of Hagee, Bush and McCain have always been willing to fight to the last drop of Jewish blood. Even as Hitler was losing the war, he denied his troops supplies so the trains could carry human cargo to the death camps.
Few Americans appreciate the depths to which their country has fallen. While many of us Jews abhor McCain's kowtowing to the religious right, he and his cohorts have done much more damage to other groups. I refer to six millions Third World citizens murdered during the CIA inspired incursions Vietnam for example. Despite the estimated 70,000 victims who have fallen into the grasp of American torture experts, few Democrats have made it a campaign issue. The US Congress has funded the effort that put 1,000,000+ Iraqis into their early graves.
Many Americans are too sure they are going to heaven despite the evil they have done. Do they think they can fool God with a few slogans?

For example, does Hillary qualify as accessory before the fact [assassination]?

Assassination is Hillary's Best Hope

Assassination is Hillary’s Best Hope

David Rees, HuffPost

Anybody watch Step It Up And Dance last night? HOT STUFF!

Anyway gang, I just read something remarkable. "Remarkable" as in, "It is remarkable that my eyeballs are still in my head after reading that."

In an interview with the editorial board of the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader today, Hillary Clinton brought up Bobby Kennedy's June, 1968 assassination as an argument against her dropping out of the Democratic primary.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

She has a point: June is a great month for political assassinations.

Why drop out of the race before all the assassins have had their say?

After all, we know Barack Obama has received multiple death threats -- because he is black, of course, and because some of our fellow citizens think he's a secret Muslim terrorist who is going to take the oath of office on the Koran and make us all pray to Mecca five times a day with that screechy music coming over the loudspeakers(?) and then he'll crash Air Force One into the White House(?) and force our wives to wear those Muslim beekeeper helmets(?).

And the truth is, Obama has consistently failed to win over those voters who want to see him murdered.

UPDATE (5:45 PM):

In the interest of fairness, I should note that Hillary has since apologized for her curious statement. That is, she has apologized to the Kennedys.

Hillary is mad, McCain a Fool

Gore Vidal Hillary is Mad McCain a Fool

Gore Vidal, FirstPost.co.uk

The American writer Gore Vidal has launched a withering attack on the Republican presidential candidate John McCain - "I've never met anyone in America who has the slightest respect for him" - and says he prefers Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, despite his friendship with Bill and Hillary, claiming her never-give-up strategy is "more or less insane".

"I'd always rather liked her," said Vidal, talking to Melvyn Bragg for Sunday night's South Bank Show on ITV. "She's a perfectly good lawyer... But this long campaign, this daily search for the grail, has driven her crazy."

Vidal said it had taken time for him to warm to Obama. "I liked the idea of him, but he never managed to get my interest. I was brought around by his overall intelligence - specifically when he did his speech on race and religion." In Vidal's opinion, "he's our best demagogue since Huey Long or Martin Luther King".

Asked whether Obama has a similar charisma to that of John F Kennedy, whom Vidal knew because he was related to Jackie Kennedy, the writer responded: "I never believed in Jack's charisma," adding that JFK "was one of our worst presidents". He said Obama was better educated than Kennedy and would come to the presidency with real experience as a senator. "Jack never went to the office - he wanted the presidency and his father [Joseph Kennedy] bought it for him."

Vidal, who has recently returned home to the States after spending 30 years living in Italy, was asked by Bragg whether Obama could beat McCain in November. "You could beat McCain!" he replied. He called the Arizona senator a "goddamned fool" who enjoyed the privilege of a private school education and managed to come bottom of his class, and then "smashed up his airplane" and became a prisoner of war as a result, an incident he has been busy trying to parlay into his being a war hero.

"[McCain] was on television talking about mortgages," said Vidal, "and it was quite clear he does not know what a mortgage is. His head rattles as he walks."

FIRST POSTED

Hillary's Obliterate Iran Threat Violates Laws

Why are alarm bells not ringing?

In chapter I, article II of the United Nations Charter, it states:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

The U.N Charter was signed in San Francisco in 1945 by the United States along with 50 other countries. Each country is bound by its articles, and the treaty prevails over all other treaties (including 'special' relationships with other nations). In other words, regardless of any hypothetical attack on Israel, the United States is legally bound not to threaten Iran or any other country. This is also enshrined in the constitution. Article IV Clause II states:

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

It is incredible that public debate regarding Hillary Clinton's threat to annihilate Iran centers around campaign strategy rather than international law.

HuffPost

Hillary to Obliterate Iran

If Iran attacks Israel with nuclear weapons, Hillary promises to obliterate Iran.

Why does this not comfort me? I live in the Negev Desert 22 miles from the Egyptian border. Also near me is Israel’s major nuclear facility at Dimona.

Primarily, we have four major cities in which our citizens have packed themselves making our country one of the most densely populated areas of the world. A few weeks ago we had a national bomb shelter drill my first in twenty-five years of living here. My chances for survival in my local bomb shelter are not good.

Spiritually, I am prepared for the End of Days when every world nation will attack us. Our destruction won’t be as easy as one might think, because we are armed to the teeth and God is on our side. We have full confidence He will erase any of our enemies left alive.

Once everyone is dead, God can conduct a proper Day of Judgment. Having executed a preemptive war, our attackers won’t fare well in the Highest Court.

Other than Jews very few people believe in this scenario. Rather, they pursue instant gratification and a fast track to eternal bliss. Let’s take Hillary for example.

She ignores Israel’s ability to retaliate. The arsenal includes 500 nuclear bombs and at least 250 fighter-bombers that can strike anywhere between Morocco and Iran. Israel has embedded a minimum 50 suitcase atomic bombs in enemy capitals. Included are many neutron bombs, which kill people rather than productive oilfields etc. How mentally ill must a would-be invader be to risk this kind of devastation?

Knowing this the Iranians harass Israel with proxies such as Palestinians and Hezbollah. Ahmadinejad may have a big mouth, but his mental capacities are in order.

Nobody in the Middle East needs or wants Hillary’s threats. She delivers them for her domestic political gain and possible future false flags finesse.

Imagine her as President when Haifa, Tel-Aviv and Beer-Sheva suffer nuclear devastation from suitcase bombs. If the perpetrator does not announce guilt, the American President has the option to obliterate any nation.

Barack Wows Them in Pennsylvania

As the Pennsylvanians rose to give Obama a standing ovation, I saw the shock and dismay on many faces. That a candidate expressed their feelings came as a shock to them. No candidate in living memory has been that sensitive to them. Their sad expression reflects the knowledge that it's a long road back.
Hillary and her kind never propose anything. They hang back until they see an opening they can exploit. In their terms an elitist is a person capable of independent thought. Very few people with clear thinking have made it through the public school system in the last three generations.
They are as scarce as whistle blowers.

Hillary Uses Sexist, Racist and Pornographic Themes

Hillary Combines Sexist, Racist and Porn Themes in Outrageous Assault

Hillary: White Men Fail to Shield Their Women

Appeal to the Second Amendment

Here’s how Holocaust Survivors coped with the Nazi degradation of Jewish women

Israel’s Nazi-porn Era by Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

“As many older Israelis evidently remember, the then-new nation was afflicted by a perverse pop-culture craze in the early '60s, at a time when nearly half the population consisted of Holocaust survivors, nationalist sentiment ran high and moral codes were extremely puritanical. Yet the newsstands in the Tel Aviv bus station sold racks of semi-pornographic pulp novels known as "Stalags," whose utterly implausible, Penthouse Forum-meets-Marquis de Sade plots ventured into the most forbidden terrain imaginable. Stalags all followed essentially the same formula: An American or British World War II pilot (generally not Jewish) is shot down behind enemy lines, where he is imprisoned, tortured and raped by an entire phalanx of sadistic, voluptuous female SS officers. His body violated but his spirit unbroken, the plucky Yank or Brit escapes in the end to rape and murder his captors.”

Stalags thrived for a few years and then disappeared, banished to the memory hole as a massive cultural embarrassment.

Hillary Monsters

Hillary and Barack are Lying about Iraq

Saddam Hussein was a bad boy. He murdered every month of his regime 1000 to 1500 innocent civilians. Worse for the Americans, he wanted to nationalize his oil production and to quit using the dollar as the medium for exchange.

Under several false flags, the USA invaded Iraq in an illegal preemptive war that increased the civilian death toll by a factor of ten or perhaps twenty [15,000 to 30,000 per month]. Nobody knows for sure, because all the parties fudged the body count. Nevertheless, five millions Iraqis abandoned their homes going into internal exile or getting out of the country altogether. [It’s called voting with your feet.]

The citizens did even worse voting at the ballot box. Their elected officials accepted bribes to pressure for privatization of the oil production and to allow continued American presence.

Sixty percent of Iraqis favor killing every American they see. Seventy percent of them want the US completely out of Iraq quickly. Eighty percent want sovereignty over their oil.

The US public and leadership comprehend little or nothing of this. They see Iraqis as a sub-human species that doesn’t bleed or mourn the deaths of loved ones. Otherwise, they would be Hillary monsters.

Right, folks?

Photo from Reuters

Has China Purchased Michigan?

Alicya Martin is the latest blogger to claw her way to the top. She was stuck at the $5000 per day earnings plateau [$150 per 15 minutes].

As all bloggers, she longed for the day when a big scoop would uplift her from the doldrums.

Her deliverer came in the rotund form of Mr Athans. The philanderer slipped Alicya’s notice, but he did the deed under the watchful eye of the FBI.

Bloggers everywhere hoped that Mr Athans worked for the State Department peddling our nuclear secrets to the Turks. He had worked as a liberal producer at Air America before that obscure rag had gone belly-up in 2006. The least we could have expected was a tie with the expose artist Randi Rhodes.

Randi had just discovered the prostitution network headed by Presidential contender Hillary Clinton and former Veep aspirant Geraldine Ferraro. If so, how had they expanded to Detroit to nab the hapless Mr Athans?

Before we bloggers could blurt out our wild theories, fate took a hand. Air America suspended Randi for bad-mouthing, but not for stating falsehoods. Mr Athans confessed to being the husband of a Michigan Democratic Senator.

To be fair, I am withholding the name of the Senator involved. I could not find two sources who could verify Michigan had representation in Washington at all.

A few days ago I heard from the Kazakhstan blogosphere that China had bought Michigan from Bear Stearns.

That notice is being suppressed pending notification of the next of kin.

Drinking from a Fire Hose

Gene Weingarten, The New Republic

Weingarten discovers life outside punditry:

Someone is saying somewhere that someone is cravenly misleading someone about something, and I get up from my chair, put on my coat, take the elevator to the lobby and walk out into the street.

It's a nice evening. Not too cold. People walking. No one seems to be arguing with anyone. Nice people, walking. Here's a person.

"Sir, do you think that McCain is going on the offensive against Obama in a subtle but devious attempt to ensure that Hillary is his opponent because her negatives continue to outweigh his negatives but Obama beats him by four to six points, according to the latest 24-hour polling data?"

"Uh, I, uh, never really thought about it," says Anthony Booker of Falls Church, backing away.

Boots McCain, Rambo Hillary and Whiskers Obama

"We're succeeding. I don't care what anybody says. I've seen the facts on the ground," McCain said.

Rambo Hillary landed in Bosnia under "sniper fire," adding: "There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." Clinton used to tell Iowa audiences: ""We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady."

“Obama has exaggerated his role in reaching a compromise in the Senate on immigration as well as his authorship of a bill to address the housing crisis. Voters need to weigh such distortions when they consider whether the freshman senator from Illinois truly is a new breed of politician.”

Ron Fournier, AP

The fourth major candidate still running is Ron Paul. Even he will not rail against the obscene profits of the medical industry.

So, the news that politicians lie should not come as any great surprise. Our future President will have flaws. It comes with the territory.

The nation has survived the antics of fools and charlatans for over 200 years. God loves drunks and the USA. Take my word for it.

The Daily Kos Strike and the NSPD 51

Some Hillary supporters at the Daily Kos are angered by management’s seeming disapproval of their candidate.

Here’s what Alegre writes in a HuffPost excerpt.

“Sadly, the majority of the administrators have allowed this hostile environment to develop in our online community for anyone who isn’t planted firmly in the Obama camp. They've routinely ignored personal attacks and allowed disruptive, spam-like posts to go unchecked whenever anyone expresses support for Hillary or challenges something their candidate has said or done. There are however several front-pagers who have managed to avoid taking part in the attacks on Hillary and for that I’m grateful. But the site has grown to the point where they simply can’t – or won’t monitor it.

As a result, our community has become little more than an echo chamber with an attitude that harkens back to the early days of Dubbya’s administration - yer either with us or yer a’gin us, heh! The attackers and disrupters are no better than Chris Matthews with their sexism, hate, lies, and obsession with bashing - all – things – Hillary.”

Humbly, I urge all decent Americans to consider the alternative. Our country is bordering on Martial Law and the suspension of elections. We risk a coup d’etat, which will crush our liberties and enslave us under a despot.

Our teachers warn. If we fail to educate one generation of students properly, we will lose our civilization forever.

Well, we proved we were a bit tougher than that.

The merchants of tyranny have been trumpeting fear, hatred, racism and bigotry for three generations. Since 1947 they have been bashing our protective walls our Constitution, our human rights and our checks and balances. We lack conscientious legislators, judges and administrators.

Nobody in authority dares to discuss the implications of NSPD 51.

Nobody in law enforcement dares to challenge the sale of our nuclear secrets to potential enemies.

Almost everyone saluted the Patriot and Military Commissions Acts.

We discussed Hillary’s asbestos pants suits and Barack’s floppy ears.

My advice to voters and to Daily Kos writers is to get a meaningful life and then to fight for your life in order to have one.

Good night and good luck.