I know, I know .. it's sort of repetitive, but here's what I have noticed in the last 20 minutes or so of watching CNN. I had to shut it off when Soledad O'Brien just called it the Democrat National Convention.
The number of distortions and lies were almost too many to count.
Carl Bernstein was on one panel, and he brought into focus these lies [paraphrasing now] 'the Democrats will finally be able to show during the Convention the public what you [corporate media] have refused to do. The polls are meaningless, and issues that matter will be highlighted'.
That was a bright spot.
Bill Schneider was another bright spot, as O'Brien tried her best to work the PUMA theme, he blurted out, almost in desperation that [paraphrasing] '40% of Republicans are not happy with John McCain, and many Republicans are voting for Obama - and where was the reporting on that?'
I had to shut it off, because I was simply too enraged.
I felt powerless against this 24/7 blaring noise machine.
Sort of lost these past few weeks has been a change in the dynamic, made to accommodate the next phase of growth of the military industrial complex.
A resurgence of the Cold War, thanks to Vladimr Putin, he of excessive holdings of ever more expensive oil and gas resources is just around the corner. It appears that Americans aren't afraid enough of 'Islamo- Fascists'. Bin-Laden's busy growing felafel for Bill O'Reilly's loofah.
The vacuum is ruining the "terra, terra, terra" narrative.
For Putin, saber rattling is all advantages.
There are no downsides for Putin and his puppet Medvedev [who?].
There's little an emasculated US State Department can do to counter Putin, and short of full scale nuclear war, there's no scenario envisioning a military entanglement involving NATO and Russia, or the US and Russia. The US has already overspent it's diplomatic pouch.
The faint whining sounds coming out of the US State Dept are greeted with knee slapping hilarity in every capital on the planet. Deficits do matter when it comes to diplomatic argot. There's no such thing as going to the well and borrowing some. Dick Cheney's dream of destroying the State Department and American diplomacy has become reality.
One has to respect that John McCain chose not to turn on his fellow POWs during his stay in Hanoi. There's little doubt that if he had accepted early release from the North Vietnamese due to the influence of his family's stature, this preferential treatment would have totally changed what life opportunities John McCain might have had upon his return to the USA.
POWs are offered special deals by captors to escape punishment, the tactic is used by the captors to demoralize the enemy. The resulting effect, to fracture the idea of unit cohesion, to damage the esprit de corps and pride of the military unit. Soldiers are trained, down to their very fingertips that these 'deals' are unacceptable.
So I respect John McCain for doing exactly what any other soldier should have done, given those circumstances. I understand that he 'broke' and do not hold the actions he did under duress.
But this does not make John McCain a hero. He said so himself, that he was not a hero.
McCain's involvement in the run up to and the response to the Georgian crisis, capped by his appearance at the Faith Based Forum on the 16th makes it quite clear.
McCain has no qualms about antagonizing the Russians, just ask him about Georgia.
With a President McCain, I fear we will diving head first right back into The Cold War, or worse.
This ad needs to be updated.
The basic message that Johnson spoke of then still holds as true today.
Here's a couple of audio snippets from the show.
Blume claims that cattails, that ubiquitous plant
that seems to be more of a nuisance than anything else
can yield over 7,000 gallons of ethanol per acre [?!?]
Cattails have been a food staple [yes, the things that grow in marshes] of American Indians, something I did not know up until today. If someone had told me you could eat these, I would have said "you're nuts".
Thanks to the political instability in Georgia, Europeans are nervous about the last vestiges of control they have over oil, at least flowing from the East.
Georgia is home to a BP pipeline that feeds Azerbaijani oil to Europe, and Russia wants to control the line: they went out of their way to bomb the pipeline, which is well south of Tblisi.
Clarification: They made a point of making an attack on the pipeline as a message. The attack appears to be intended to intimidate, as it caused no damage. The target was clearly chosen, however.
So, it's yet another war about energy sources and oil.
This time, Europe sees the Russians possibly grasping at the last 1% of control of the flow oil from the East.
A tidal wave of negative ads and consistent negative campaigning, even by Repugs is usually reserved for the very end of the campaign. It's the hallmark of a loser to be putting these awful, stupid, unprofessional things wall to wall 3 months before Election Day.
These attacks are childish and moronic. His own mother turned her nose up that Britney/Paris ad. Ed Rollins and a number of other experienced Repugs, well versed in Atwater/Rove politics are shaking their heads and saying 'this is fucked up'.
Every single appearance the guy makes, he attacks Obama and the crowd reaction is tepid. In some cases, people are obviously turning away in disgust.
So what's up with McCain? This isn't a winning campaign strategy, and once you go negative like this, there's no coming back. So why is this happening 3 months before Election Day?
This is what you pay at the pump in combined Federal and State tax on average for a gallon of gas.
Most of this information is from the wiki.
I believe it to be relatively accurate.
In the Netherlands, they pay $3.50 a gallon in tax, and then VAT in addition to the final price.
In Norway, [where there's a huge amount of oil and natural gas production] they pay an effective rate of $5.38/gallon in tax on gasoline. The government refers to the tax as environmental tax on fuels.
In the UK, the combined tax is $5.20.
The average tax on a gallon of gasoline in the US is 47 cents. We pay a similar [slightly higher] tax rate on diesel, on natural gas, on coal that is used to create electricity.
The crux of Mike Malloy's comment last night that started the firestorm [if I may be so bold as to encapsulate the Wednesday and Thursday night shows] is that no matter who becomes President, they are going to be unable to fix the problems we have in the country, so it might as well be John McCain elected, rather than Barack Obama.
Paraphrasing all of what Mike said, if Obama is elected, he will be torn to ribbons by the Republicans. They will try to blame everything on him, and [this part is implied] it will result in a horrible backlash as Republicans regain control in 2012.
Malloy at no point in his program recommended that anyone vote for McCain. What he did say, is that if McCain were to be elected it would be better for progressives, because we'd be able to flush out the DINOs, DLC'ers and Blue Dogs [my shorthand] out of Congress in 2010 and 2012, and elect Obama or whomever in 2012. I'll comment on this part on the flip.
Exxon/Mobil earned $12 billion dollars in profit last quarter, which is more profit in one quarter ever earned by a corporation in human history.
Other oil and gas companies did about as well. Meanwhile, the profits of oil, gas, natural gas and coal industries continue to line the pockets of the very rich, and groups of speculators on Wall Street.
Not only should there be price controls on all carbon based energy sources, there should be taxes [as I stated in a diary a few days ago] in my diary Gasoline should be $15, $20 a gallon.
As stated in the original diary, protections should be offered to the poor and working class, and selected sectors such as commercial trucking and rail. This could be accomplished by rationing coupons, or tax rebates or some other subsidy for heating oil, gasoline and diesel to maintain the backbone of the American economy.
Energy companies should not be allowed to hold the American people hostage and make record profits. The massive amounts of waste in consumption of carbon based fuels must be addressed, right now for many reasons.
It appears McCain's camp is passing these out to mock the Obama campaign.
[Warning: Some of the comments on the CNN blog are just mindbogglingly stupid.]
As someone who recently has proof of what proper tire inflation can do, I can throw this right back in the face of the McCain campaign.
My Honda Civic had recently been taken in to the mechanic, in April for yearly inspection and tune up. The tires were inflated to 30 pounds front and back, as per the manual. [actually 30 front and 29 back in the manual, but that's what the mechanic inflated the tires to].
Jerome has a diary up right now, which alludes to part of the problem of 'high gas prices', and how Exxon/Mobil is only 'doing what we ask of them'. What Exxon is doing is taking advantage of the difference between the artificially low price of energy we are paying, versus the reality of its sustainability and it's true cost to society. Almost all hydrocarbons are a 'bargain', a Faustian bargain.
We have been given a free ride on burning of fossil fuels for a couple of centuries. For most of the time man has used fossil fuels, there has been little discussion or concern about the impact of using this technology on our planet. As science progressed and improved, we began to realize some horrible things.
Later versions of this AP piece leave out this paragraph, and 'news outlets' like the NYT are not quoting this paragraph.
"Like all compromises, it also includes steps that I haven't always supported," Obama conceded. "I remain skeptical that new offshore drilling will bring down gas prices in the short-term or significantly reduce our oil dependence in the long-term, though I do welcome the establishment of a process that will allow us to make future drilling decisions based on science and fact."
John Sidney McCain the 3rd, whose military "expertise" consists of graduating 894th out of a class of 899 at the US Naval Academy prior to getting shot down over enemy territory and being held as a prisoner of war has been flatulently trumpeting his skill to 'win the war' in Iraq since he started to run for the nomination.
That was bad enough.
But this weekend, with the nervous smell of desperation oozing from every pore of his sweaty campaign, McCain has decided that only he has the requisite knowledge and tenacity to capture the wily Osama Bin-Laden.
Well, I'm not going to telegraph a lot of the things that I'm going to do because then it might compromise our ability to do so. But, look, I know the area. I've been there. I know wars. I know how to win wars. And I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden or, put it this way, bring him to justice.
This enlargement is being improvised by conservative Republicans whose only doctrine is the theory of TBTF. The theory is that this or that institution is too big to (be allowed to) fail.
Today's surge of "conservative corporatism" began with the Bush administration's brokering of JPMorgan Chase's takeover of Bear Stearns.
Nevertheless, this looks like semi-socialism—keeping profits private, but socializing losses.
Sounds almost like a Kossack.
"Keeping profits private, but socializing losses" is one of our mantras: maybe he got it from reading us. :)
It's intended to shake out enthusiasm, and it's a lovely way to drive shards of broken glass into hope.
Yes, the vote today sucked heinously. It's sets an awful precedent, one which could be used for further excesses of corporate malfeasance done at the Executive Branch's request, without oversight, without recourse.
But the Democratic Party is not bowing to anything. 28 Senators voted against FISA. 19 voted for it. Some of the 19 represent very conservative Red States, some of them do not. One Senator that voted for it happens to be the putative nominee of the Party.
But Howard Dean didn't vote for it. And almost every other Democrat in the House and Senate who I'd consider liberal voted against it .. with some very odd exceptions.
Odd. Barack Obama has shown him self to be well within the current view points of Democratic Senators - and I ain't talking Bayh, the Nelsons, Conrad, Pryor or .. [edited] one of the more conservative Democratic Senators, Jim Webb as the markers for where Obama ends up in the political spectrum. [Webb is not a liberal, folks.]
Every thing Obama has done to [gasp!] "shift his position" has still placed him well within the group of Harkin, Feingold, Leahy, Levin, Schumer, Cantwell, Reed, Democratic centrists all .. and yet some people here appear to be egregiously disappointed ..
Every move Barack makes is being scrutinized, torn apart and attacked. I am flummoxed by the viciousness of the attacks being made. I'm scratching my head wondering if I entered a parallel universe.
As most every one here knows, I'm way off to the left. Bernie Sanders, and the House CPC is my idea of where the country should be headed. Sometimes, even they are too 'conservative' for me.
So why am I not screaming bloody murder that 'Obama has abandoned me'?
