Sticky Fingers McCain Does It Again
John McCain is an angry, mercurial, petulant and self serving man who believes that John McCain is entitled to say, do and take whatever John McCain wants and John McCain needs. In this regard, he has no honor, and no shame. From pilfering Iraq policy from Obama, to foreign policy from Wiki, to video from Wayne and Garth, Sticky Fingers McCain just takes what he wants because he feels he is entitled to it. The world is his due, because St. McCain was, you know, a POW. Everything else is his gravy.
The latest thing Sticky Fingers McCain has ripped off is Jackson Browne’s song "Running on Empty". Jackson isn’t real happy about it and is suing McCain in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles over the misappropriation.
Browne, a lifelong Democrat, is seeking unspecified damages as well as a permanent injunction prohibiting the use
of “Running on Empty” in any form by the McCain campaign.“Not only have Senator McCain and his agents plainly infringed Mr. Browne’s copyright in ’Running on Empty,’ but
the federal courts have long held that the unauthorized use of a famous singer’s voice in a commercial constitutes
a false endorsement and a violation of the singer’s right of publicity,” Lawrence Iser, Browne lawyer, said.
It hasn’t even been a week since McCain was slapped for stealing the "We’re not worthy" bit from Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, and he is already back at it again. The cookie recipe theft was kind of comical at first, but the unapologetic theft and misappropriation just keeps coming and coming. After a while, it really does show a pattern and practice of arrogant and dishonest behavior.
Lets hope that Jackson Browne lays the wood to McCain hard and puts him in his place. Of course, that will make the volatile McCain furious, and when McCain gets furious, veins start bulging in his neck and he turns red with anger. He becomes a fiery red ball of fury that lashes out, assaulting and attacking whatever is in his path, from fellow US Senators, to NASA Administrators to his own wife. Jackson Browne is no shrinking violet though; he is ready for McCain’s angry rednecked fury. McCain has a condescending and boorish habit of calling people "My friend". Let me clue you in, Jackson isn’t the rednecked McCain’s friend.
Hardin!
Another question, why is Cindy always by his side?
Isn’t it the first time in campaigning history that this has happened?
Is that why his fingers are sticky?
Why does John McCain hate private property?
It’s only illegal when non-Republicans do it.
Can you name any laws that apply to these bastards?
Copyrights are for sissies, infringements don’t happen in the 21st century
This is only a preview for how a McShame administration will continue robbing us blind. Now who does that remind us of? That’s right GWB. Yet another example of how McCain is just like GWB, except (if anyone could believe it) worse.
I still think back to 2000 when I voted for this idiot in the primaries. Did he have a brain channge operation? Does he have no shame?
BTW, it is also ironic that McShame is trying to use the celebrity label to attack Obama while he’s trying to use an actual Democratic celebrity to promote himself.
Ripping off Jackson Browne seems particularly egregious, but… the lyrics really do fit McCain’s campaign:
Of course, this line would have to refer to 1869
Thought the very same thing. Can you imagine if Jackson Browne just showed up at the Democratic party and dedicated this song to McSame. That would be beyond hilarious.
How do these “MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE” come to believe that they are in fact above every law? Follow the money men:
McCain Says Major Financiers Will Back His 2008 Bid
December 15, 2006
One of the most prominent on the list of finance committee co-chairmen is the head of the New York Stock Exchange, John Thain. Mr. Thain, whose title is CEO of NYSE Group, Inc., previously served as president and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
A New Jersey-based investment banker deeply involved in fund-raising efforts for the 2004 Republican convention, Lewis Eisenberg, is signing on with Mr. McCain. Mr. Eisenberg is a former Goldman Sachs partner who served as chairman of the Port Authority board at the time of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
It was Eisenberg who passed the $15 billion Asbestos Liability represented by the Twin Towers onto Larry Silverstein, the man who confessed publicly to having Building 7 “PULLED” – raising COINCIDENCE THEORY to a new high art form.
It was well-known by the city of New York that the WTC was an asbestos bombshell. For years, the Port Authority treated the building like an aging dinosaur, attempting on several occasions to get permits to demolish the building for liability reasons, but being turned down due the known asbestos problem. Further, it was well-known the only reason the building was still standing until 9/11 was because it was too costly to disassemble the twin towers floor by floor since the Port Authority was prohibited legally from demolishing the buildings.
The projected cost to disassemble the towers: $15 Billion. Just the scaffolding for the operation was estimated at $2.4 Billion!
Dresser Industries had been THE company on the hook for all of the class action law suits related to asbestos-induced mesothelioma…at least they were until then-Halliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, to them off the hook by acquiring Dresser (and all its liabilities):
On December 18, 2002, CBS News reported that Halliburton “has agreed to pay about $4 billion in cash and stock to settle hundreds of thousands of asbestos claims against it.” Reportedly, Halliburton inherited its asbestos liability from Harbison-Walker, a unit of Halliburton’s subsidiary Dresser Industries, and from Halliburton’s Kellog Brown & Root subsidiary.
And on August 11, 2002, The Olympian (from Olympia, WA), carried a Washington Post article noting that:
“Dresser had close ties to a family Cheney knew well: the Bushes. Cheney’s boss while he served as Secretary of Defense, President George H.W. Bush, was once being groomed to run Dresser, a company that Bush’s father and grandfather had reshaped decades earlier.
When Dresser went public in the 1920s, it turned to W.A. Harriman & Co., whose president was George Herbert Walker, grandfather and namesake to former president Bush. Prescott Bush, the former president’s father, helped organize Dresser and select its new president, H. Neil Mallon. Prescott Bush eventually sat on the board and by 1941, still held 1,900 shares of Dresser stock. Mallon was so close to former president Bush that he described him in his autobiography as “surrogate uncle and father-confessor.” One of his sons, Neil Mallon Bush, is named after him. After World War II, Mallon employed George H.W. Bush and Dresser executives expected him to take over the company, according to journalist Darwin Payne, who wrote a history of Dresser. Instead, the former president left to prospect for oil.
The stock of Halliburton was crushed:
In 1998, Dresser merged with its main rival, Halliburton, and is now known as Halliburton Company. Dick Cheney negotiated the $7.7-billion deal, reportedly having done so during a weekend of quail-hunting. In 2001, Halliburton was forced to settle the asbestos lawsuits that it acquired as a result of purchasing Dresser, causing the company’s stock price to fall by eighty percent in just over a year.
Ah, but the Halliburton shareholders were ultimately reimbursed for their CEO’s generosity (criminality) when HAL was awarded endless no-bid contracts for the endless “War Of Terror.”
It was Cheney who instructed Christine Todd Whitman to lie about the levels of asbestos at ground zero, because he didn’t want people to make the connection that the entire operation was simply arson on a grand scale, which eliminated a $15 billion liability from Halliburton’s books.
Need more evidence of the quid pro quo?
GW included the issue in his State of the Union speech in 2005.
“To make our economy stronger and more competitive, America must reward, not punish, the efforts and dreams of entrepreneurs. Small business is the path of advancement, especially for women and minorities, so we must free small businesses from needless regulation and protect honest job-creators from junk lawsuits. (Applause.) Justice is distorted, and our economy is held back by irresponsible class-actions and frivolous asbestos claims — and I urge Congress to pass legal reforms this year.”
Famous Quote of George Bush Senior:” You can fool some of the people all the time, and these are the ones you want to concentrate on”
I also remember he said “Sarah, if the American people had ever known the truth about what we Bushes have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched.”
George Bush Senior speaking in an interview with
Sarah McClendon in December 1992 –
President G W Bush’s first pick to investigated the 911 Attack:
Henry Kissinger –
“It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.” — Henry Kissinger
FOLLOW THE MONEY.
I would never have credited 41 with having so much originality or self-awareness. Got any more?
And now Jackson Browne.
The US Naval Academy Brigade Honor Committee would have its hands full if they had to deal with Midshipman McCain today.
Or maybe not. After the first offense (or two, if they were being lenient), they’d just hand him his books and his duffel bag, and toss him to the curb.
Marcy’s on the road and Juan Cole confirms the following:
http://www.juancole.com/
And then this headline hit this AM:
http://apnews1.iwon.com//artic…..M8N00.html
And then…
http://apnews1.iwon.com//artic…..MG3O0.html
bmaz? Is it too late? Can we stop her car and bring her back?
Oh, I’m not gone yet.
Well then, if these are the headlines and you are STILL here, what’s next?
Have a great trip.
I realize this will probably seem completely bizarre, but one of my friends/acquaintance was telling me that several planets are all clustered in Leo or Virgo or something this month and next and that things would be very dicey.
Now, I like this person a lot, but tend to be skeptical of such things… now, however, I’m a bit spooked. Odd coincidence, because events sure seem to be taking some ominous turns.
Follow the money. Follow the Defense contractors
But if you scroll down at the Juan Cole link above there is this gem which is a bit more “on topic”…
And imagine him all sweetness and light now about wanting good relations with Moscow after his rants all the past week.
Creepy. Just clicked here from TPM and I’ll note two items that may be relevant:
1. Josh Marshall points out that we are in dire danger from egoists like McCain and the Comfortably Appointed Commentariat who have a psychological dynamic at work in which they have to magnify any potential conflict into a Vast Danger, mostly to give significance to their own puny ego-driven fantasies. (FWIW, I strongly agree with Marshall on this point, and am really glad to see someone call it out and expose this danger.)
2. Also at TPM, there’s a clip of Alex Gibney, the documentary filmmaker who did ‘Taxi to the Dark Side’, and also one of my favorites ‘The Smartest Guys in the Room’ (about Enron). In his interview, he talks about how Abramoff was a movie buff, produced the Dolph Lundgren ‘Red Scorpion’ shoot-’em-ups that made a hero out of a rank murderer like Jonas Savimbi.
I realize no one here’s probably interested in mirror neurons, but the synopsis is: ‘we act the way we watch others — who seem powerful, admirable, act’. There’s a case to be made IMHO that Bush, Cheney, the GOPers in general, and certainly McCain are delusionally acting out the fantasies they absorbed from too many John Wayne movies. (And FWIW, Adolf Hitler was a huge fan of American ‘cowboys and Injuns’ movies, and he viewed the Slavs and Poles as ‘Injuns’ who needed to be ‘moved off’ the land… same psychology seems to drive aparteid — and Abramoff and his buddies were, as Gibney points out, affiliated with the aparteid government of South Africa back in the 80s. Thomas Frank’s new “Wrecking Crew” also points out these creepy, interwoven threads.)
Shorter; McCain’s a loon, and whereas a month ago he just made me cringe, now I’m getting worried.
Bmaz, superb link for you re: corporate power, and the dynamics that are binding US CEOs to authoritarian regimes, which then prompts them to lobby Congress here on behalf of very, very un-democratic forces: http://www.prospect.org/cs/art…..ign_agents
Now… when freep gets outta the comfy chair, I’m grabbin’ it.
What is that, a documentary of the life of Dick Cheney?
BTW, if someone resigns while EW is out of town it’ll have to be Rice. I think she finally got to the point where she expected to be allowed to do the job whose title she uses, but wasn’t allowed in Georgia because Secretary of State John McCain was workin’ it.
You know Mark, she has been awful non-committal and stand offish when questioned about who she would vote for. That is an interesting thought; don’t think she will resign, but it is an interesting thought. I do almost think she will vote for Obama, whether she ever admits it or not is another thing.
Copyrights?
We don’t need no stinkin’ copyrights!
Tell that to Disney.
In fact, the MouseHouse(tm) folks might want to have a word with McCain before this really gets out of hand . . .
First he came for Wayne and Garth, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Wayne and Garth.
Then he came for Jackson Browne, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Jackson Browne.
Then he came for me . . . and there was no one left to speak up for me.
Am I, perhaps, a bit too sensitive?
Dateline: Sunday, August 10, 2008 7:12 EDT from Glen Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..0/anthrax/
He begins: A commenter here on Friday noted what appears to be a rather glaring contradiction in the case against Bruce Ivins.
snip
The fastest one can drive from Frederick, Maryland to Princeton, New Jersey is 3 hours, which would mean that Ivins would have had to have dropped the anthrax letters in the New Jersey mailbox on September 17 by 1 p.m. or — at the latest — 2 p.m. in order to be able to attend a 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. meeting back at Ft. Detrick. But had he dropped the letters in the mailbox before 5:00 p.m. on September 17, the letters would have borne a September 17 postmark, rather than the September 18 postmark they bore (letters picked up from that Princeton mailbox before 5 p.m. bear the postmark from that day; letters picked up after 5 p.m. bear the postmark of the next day). That’s why the Search Warrant Affidavit (.pdf) released by the FBI on Friday said this (page 8):
snip
Marcy Wheeler and Larisa Alexandrovna have now noted the same discrepancy. That is a pretty enormous contradiction in the FBI’s case.
—————-
Marcy and Larisa have NOW noted the same discrepancy.
It’s the now. The thing is Marcy and Larisa wrote about the FBI’s timeline problems on August 9th.
Here’s Marcy from August 9th:
Ivins normally got to work early–around 7:30 AM. Assuming his brief stay was half an hour (are they suggesting he went in and picked up the anthrax? and if so, did anyone ask why he’d do so during daytime hours?), he would have had eight hours to drive to Princeton and back. That’s certainly doable–Google says the drive takes 3 hours and 25 minutes. Who knows whether Ivins sped much in his 1993 Honda Civic (in 2001, he also had a 1996 Dodge van; he did not yet have his 2002 Saturn). But even if he went faster than Google says he should have (he would have been driving on I-95, after all, which pretty much requires speeding), he almost certainly would have hit rush hour traffic at least once in his drive, if not twice.
snip
In other words, had he mailed the anthrax when they’re arguing he did, the letter would have been picked up at the 5:00 PM pick-up (if not an earlier one–often boxes have a mid-day pick-up as well), and post-marked on September 17, not on September 18. [Note, suffragette and I were thinking along the same lines.]
Update: fixed the title per skdadl.
Yes, you’re too sensitive. On Aug. 10, Greenwald starts out by saying:
[My emphasis]
Friday was Aug. 8. It’s perfectly appropriate, on Sunday, to refer to people who blogged on Saturday what his commenter wrote about on Friday as having ‘now noted’. Greenwald is giving to the three people that he knew of that had written about the topic before he did.
I left out the word credit:
Greenwald is giving credit to the three people that he knew of that had written about the topic before he did.
OT… bad omen
This ain’t the “The Way Life Should Be”
http://www.boston.com/news/loc…..on_blinks/
McCain reminds me of Khruschev. I wouldn’t be surprised if, while debating Obama, McCain takes off one of his $500 shoes and starts banging it on the table.
I think you are absolutely right and I can’t wait to see the debates. I think the reason that the Obama campaign is turning down the town halls (aside from the reason “because they can!”) is that by only having October debates, it is a sure thing that McCain will lose it in one way or another. This way he has little recovery time.
Maybe the best way for Jackson Browne to fight back is for him to make an anti-McCain ad featuring the song.
Good Morning bmaz and empptywheelers ,
ah Jackson Browne, the soundtrack of my salad days (okay, wasted youth).
didn’t know until this story he had donated to Ned Lamont – I wuvs him more
and where may I inquire is Ms Wheeler headed ? – the Let’s Get Ready to Humble! this Sunday – dog I wish
Copyrights are for suckers !
ok, now I know, EW is on the road (hope you catch some of the Badlands enroute – unbelievable)
anyhoo – per the post about WH, State, and DoD being in a panic about the whole Georgia as Choreography allusions –
credence lent when I saw they had Chimpigula in front of a Rose Garden microphone very early this morning – teehee
A lawsuit for stealing from Jackson Browne?
I have to wonder “Is this the price for having learned how not to cry?”
I’ve actually been enjoying this. This is the first time I can remember when a presidental wannabe has inserted himself into an international crisis with full WH approval. They must be DESPERATE.
I remember Reagan during the Iran crisis election limiting himself to simply saying he’d handle it differently. I considered that pretty classy.
I take some comfort in knowing that it is highly probable that McBush diplomacy will do no worse than Bush diplomacy in this case.
Boxturtle (That’s simply because I can’t envision any worse short of pushing the button)
He said that while he was handling it differently. Behind the scenes. Without authorization form the sitting President. That’s not classy.
If memory serves, he started that after the election, but before 1/20. That’s okay, I guess.
Boxturtle (If memory serves)
John McCain is entitled to say, do and take whatever John McCain wants and John McCain needs. In this regard, he has no honor, and no shame.
You forgot no impulse control, no control of his temper, or strong grasp of the facts.
McCain always complains about Liberals but when the GOP needs music or Comedy they always borrow from us.
Why can’t McCain just borrow Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkerie” Hitler loved that tune and I’m sure McCain’s base wouldn’t need any more hand holding if he chose that as a campaign song.
For whatever reason, artists and musicians seem to be on the left side of the political spectrum. The ones that land on the right side seem to be almost all in county music.
Boxturtle (Thinks McBush should be introduced by the Monty Python theme)
Come on John “Ride of the Valkerie” is the Perfect Campaign song for you
Nietzche wrote Nietzsche contra Wagner because of the antisemitism your base will love it.
Nietzsche contra Wagner is a critical essay by Friedrich Nietzsche, written in his last year of lucidity (1888-1889). It was not published until 1895, six years after Nietzsche’s mental collapse. In it Nietzsche describes why he parted ways with his one-time idol and friend, Richard Wagner. Nietzsche attacks Wagner’s views in this short work, expressing disappointment and frustration in Wagner’s life choices (such as his conversion to Christianity, perceived as a sign of weakness). Nietzsche evaluates Wagner’s philosophy on tonality, music and art; he admires Wagner’s power to emote and express himself, but largely disdains what Nietzsche calls his religious biases.
It is an important work for several reasons. For one, it illustrates Nietzsche’s evolution from a younger philosopher, fawning over Wagner’s compelling life, to an intensely inquiring, more mature one after profound disillusionment. Another reason is it questions any conception that would label Nietzsche as anti-Semitic, as it is oft supposed, and instead opens the view of how complex Nietzsche’s stance is on these issues: “[Wagner] had condescended step by step to everything I despise—even to anti-Semitism.”
[edit]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N…..tra_Wagner
Any ideas for a conservative comedy routine McCain can use? I’m drawing a blank.
I say we tell him that Mark Russell is conservative.
Boxturtle (*Evil grin*)
Network anchors Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams are trying hard to give objective coverage of Obama during his overseas trip. They are only addressing him as “Mr. President” in private.
redstar2.gif (924 bytes) Republicans are questioning why the networks sent their anchors to cover a mere candidate. Actually, Katie Couric went over there to audition for “Good Morning Fallujah.
redstar2.gif (924 bytes) In Pakistan, the media was hoping to catch Obama off-microphone saying something embarrassing like, “I haven’t seen this many Muslims since my last family reunion.”
redstar2.gif (924 bytes) Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, is getting careless. He almost slipped and offered to take Obama to bin Laden’s cave.
http://www.markrussell.net/
I think McCain would sooner disown Reagen than deal with humor that wasn’t stolen and twisted to his purpose like the Orcs were by the Dark Lord.
Remember Couric’s interview with Valerie Plame.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..#8230;part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..re=related part II
When you watch Couric come alive during this interview when she infers that Plame should have considered that her cover could be blown by this administration because of her husbands article.
Couric “you never for a moment that this could potentially jeopardize your career”
“your in a Greta Garbo pose”?
I find Couric creepy. Just wonder about her connections in the media industry? She has never been a real investigative reporter. Just how did she climb this ladder?
Am unable to find Couric’s interview with McCain quite a while back in Iraq. The interview with McCain in a car in Iraq was oh so telling about Couric (wish I could find it)
Watch Couric in part two of the 60 minutes interview, she is a complete ass with Joe and Valerie Wilson. Wondering why Joe Wilson is “seething”? Couric does not get it. She had to climb that ladder through connections because she is obviously not an investigative reporter in any way shape or form
Katie: The Real Story by Edward Klien alleged that while at Chicken Noodle Network she climbed on a lot of bosses including one whose marriage she broke up who was old enough to be her father.
One of her exs who dumped her, TV producer Tom Werner, is dating Alexandra von Furstenberg – the Miller sister who was married to Diane von Furstenberg’s son, Alexandre, until he left her for 19-year-old Ali Kay.
Katie is supposed to have broken up two marriages after affairs. One was after an affair with a 12-years-older, married, dad-of-two who was a media spokesman for the Miami-Dade Police Department but his marriage was in the tank when he started dating Katie and giving her scoops.
Her current boy toy is tri-athlete Brooks Perlin old enough to be her son.
Guys with money have been known to date much younger women and the reverse trend is gaining popularity.
I’m sure love is in there somewhere once in awhile.
Katie lost me with the gushing “Thank you! Thank you!” when she got an interview with Bush. Her daughters could have asked better questions, and what gripes me about Couric is hardly how many people she slept with or didn’t to get to the top, it’s that her interviews with people in the administration are pathetic.
My showcase for this was the interview she did with Condi Rice–gushing and lacking any substantive questions at all. There is a lot you can ask Rice about, and Katie didn’t do it.
Often her interviews are “pathetic” But if you watch those interviews with Joe and Valerie Wilson, Katie directly attacks them. She acts like a Jack Russell terrorist in those interviews.
Thanks for adding more details and comment Mr. Pierce. “…and Katie didn’t do it.” At the end, referring to her soft balls.
Comments on teevee talking heads and their habit of being easy on criminal govt often ignore the obvious fact that the networks (ALL of them here in USA) are owned/controlled by heavies with the same agenda. Close allies shall we say, with their opposite heavies in govt & industry, who must keep certain unsavory stories out of the limelight.
Therefore, I take it as a given that anything heard or seen thru the “news” is suspect, and those tellers of the news should get less respect than a talkative cab driver. In other words, ignore them, don’t watch them, don’t bother to talk about them in a public forum because their “power” derives from the audience discussing them seriously. This power is used to instill fear when that is called for by the heavies, to gloss over or hide entirely any news that is contrary to the heavies’ best interest, and to manage perception by the peeps, keep them ignorant.
This is in no way a criticism of you or your post Pete; I just wanted to make that point and probably will again. It applies to just about everybody who tries to keep up with current affairs. More succinctly: The networks are your (active & aggressive) enemy whether you know it or not.
-Cindy over one shoulder of McCain’s and Lieberman over the other. Heaven help us.
Would really be a deserved slap in McCain’s face if Jackson Browne just up and decided to visit the Democratic Convention and sing “Running on Empty” or this one.
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyri…..orado.html
-The conversation that I have had with several folks is how in the hell could this Presidential race even be close after the last seven years? What has to happen to the American people who are economically struggling and have relatives serving in a war based on a “pack of lies”?
Karl Rove focused on southeastern Ohio and similar areas( Reagan Democrats) during the last two Presidential s-elections. In Ohio we know that Republican Secretary of the State Kenneth Blackwell was on board with Rove making sure that areas where they knew record breaking numbers of voters would turn out would only have three voting machines instead of the six in the previous election etc. One of the obvious strategies used in this part of the country was the god guns and gay issues.
Karl Rove’s election predictions
http://www.salon.com/politics/…..index.html
+_Will never forget the words of one of my oldest and dearest friends Italian grandfather who was in his 80’s when we had this conversation in Denver. This old gent was from Sicily and at that time a retired union bricklayer. With his Italian accent he said to me ” the only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that if you have a few crumbs in your pockets the Republicans will steal the crumbs and the Democrats will leave a few for you” “That is all you need to know”
McCain will steal the crumbs for his comrades.
http://mediamatters.org/items/…..f=h_latest
I really do not understand why folks like McCain are honored for serving in Vietnam which was also an immoral and illegal war?
Has anyone asked McCain if he suffers from PTS…
His bellicostic reactions are insane…
I think Kirk Murphy might have a stroke or maybe John has been ussing Cindy’s pill box by mistake our my theories.
Sorry
I think Kirk Murphy might have mentioned PTS. A stroke or maybe John has been using Cindy’s pill box by mistake our my theories.
Fair question
Zbig’s view of the earlier Israel/Lebanon conflict may shed some interesting perspective on the present Georgia/Russia conflict where disproportionate response is concerned. Food for thought:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.c…..001559.php
http://www.salon.com/
In his second-to-last month raising money for the presidential campaign, John McCain took in $27 million, leaving him $21.4 million in the bank
By Mike Madden
War Room
Right-wing ethics: “Good is when I take from you. Evil is when you take from me.”
Shorter: IOKIYAR
The golden what?
Mellancamp, ABBA, Frainkie Valli, and now Jackson Brown. What’s predictable about McCain is that he has the Bush campaign formula of not only totally negative/superficial campaigning, even when feigning to be discussing the issues like “energy,” but all of his followers are parroting the stupid platitudes in the lol best seller by wing-nut Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality.
Of course it’s #1 on Sunday’s NYT non-fiction list because this is Bannana Republic America where the children of the people who buy the book graduate high school without having read 5 books.
A typical one is Nobama because he has “dual citizenship”–US/Kenya. They couldn’t make the no American fiction fly, so now they’ve grabbed Kenya into the mix. Next it will be that he’s trying to annex the US into an African territory.
Woops. Watch that spelling.
You know my spelling is enpuckable Loo Hoo from the best thesorisis. I hear Marcy’s live blogging from
the Clinton Love-in
after her camping trip North of the Lake/Dakota.
OT Follow the money
Anyone know anything about the defense contractors who pushed for the missile defense system in Poland?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..19053.html
Thanks to all the awesome posters here, especially Plunger and Bmaz. I can’t keep up with you, but I’m learning. Keep up the good work!
I think the candidates should each have to name not only their VP but their cabinet picks…. imagine Addington as Atty General! And very important would be Director of CIA (King of The Dark Side).
You raise an interesting point. You should read Scott Horton at Harper’s today; he has a post about how pathetic and irrelevant most of the ‘debate’ questions of 2008 have been: http://www.harpers.org/archive…..c-90003397
How do you get decent government the candidates aren’t even asked basic questions like, “How would you go about fixing DoJ? Who would you appoint, how would you monitor the progress…?”
Better debate questions would at least make it a bit more clear what their JOBS are. Crickey.
Put EW, Dan RAther, Helen Thomas, Amy Goodman or Glenn Greenwald in the room to ask questions of the candidates. That is the only way to have some tough questions asked
readerOfTeaLeaves at 54 gives the link to a very good article in today’s Harper’s on the questions that should have been put to the candidates in the debates (and STILL should be put to them). How can we bring about this vital change in making the candidate’s put these issues out for the public?
bmaz and EW, how about an article filled with questions of this caliber?
Different subject: We need to be attentive to the VP picks by each candidate, for it is not unreasonable (or tinfoil hat) to consider that whoever wins. there is a fairly good chance for the VP to become president.
I’ve been voting since Ike: I have never felt so strongly against a presidential candidate as I now consider McCain. He is dangerous not only for America but for the planet!
I have read the claims by Browne and the counter claims by McCain.
What I haven’t been able to find on youtube or anywhere is the commercial itself.
Usually on something like that the candidate says ”I approve this message” at the end.
Did McCain do this? If so, then his claim that it was the work of the Ohio Republican party and not his responsibility won’t hold water.
Bmaz ..All check out what Cafferty had to say about McCain recently
Cafferty to McCain, Say What? “In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/…..r-nations/
Poor McCain. He’s been influenced by those who proclaim (in most cases while using proprietary software) that all digital information, including song files, wants to free. But he’d gladly leave a whole lot of Republican administration secrets, in digital or paper files, unfree.
National debt increasing at a $700 billion rate, likewise, the trade deficit. Both candidates describe Afghanistan as ”a” or ”the” ”frontline of the war on terror”….both vow to defend Israel as if it were the 51st US state. Both candidates voted for the FISA abomination. US GINI, now above 45, is at a third world level, even as signs of the early stages of a deflationary depression, loom. Unemployment, here in GA, reached a level not seen in 15 years… and ”on topic” today, at this ”bully pulpit”, shall be McCain campaign’s rip-off of an aging ”has been” pop star’s song?
Why?
Because I didn’t have time this morning to work up a piece on the capture of the sasquatch. Dubious logic for “host” to annoy The Host.
Rude. bmaz is showing the pattern of a thief. One who will never be reformed.
ot Bears worry the Bulls
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08…..ref=slogin
Ceasefire signed
The bully bullying the bully from the bloody pulpit
http://afp.google.com/article/…..GBxH7vSjZA
John McCain how was your affair any different than John Edwards affair?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..17811.html
With the exception that Edwards does not seem to be leaving his wife for the other woman.
Damn I so wanted to witness John Edwards become the Attorney General.
Remember Robin Williams skit about how mens better senses are left behind How God gave you blood for your brain and your other brain. But it only runs to one brain at a time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFM11SmoxfI
Russia invades Georgia
Missile defense agreement in Poland yesterday
Ceasefire agreement today.
Sure makes you wonder
Hi folks. Long day here in the heat. Marcy has finally hit the road. I need to find some refreshments, and then I should have a post up on the Georgia situation in an hour, maybe two. Lot of action, so to speak, there today.
So Little Goat reader is in Texas clearing brush, McCain is talking to Saakashvili more times a day than two twelve year olds texting in heat, and tanks are 29 miles from Tivlisi to put down the massive horrific Ethnic cleansing that the Georgians are executing by killing their own women and children, burning their own buildins, bombing themselves, and making sure they donate their weapons to the oil poor Russians and he can afford to vacation because man when Bush and Condi talk, the Russians are jumpin’ and twitchin’ with fear.
Time for doubles at Happy Hour.
Sorry Loo Hoo, Tiblisi.
No, it’s the triple n banana I’m badgering you about!!
bmaz, look forward to the next post. I’ve been arguing with a ph.d friend here in Panama about the Georgia/Russia situation, and hoping a link to your upcoming post will help support my position.
McCain’s a thief and a liar.
bmaz, did you see this from TP?
Bmaz and Marcy, (yo Loo Hoo)
Dropped in to say that y’all should be very proud. My (very small) employer installed an internet user spy on the workers package the other day and it blocked Emptywheel today. Bitches. I’m sure it will be removed from the banned sites list, as soon as I ask, but I thought you might get a kick out of the message: “Blocked for Content.”
Keep up the good work. Have a safe trip Empty.
Mr.Cbl
I have it on good information that AT&T just took us out too. Must be doing something right.
Hi cbl. Loved your fine city.
bmaz,
You’ve got mail @ WTWC.
Cheers,
Bob in HI
Well, Browne and Macdonald both are playing some of my creations, Browne having done all the work to make an actual composition of a jam from back when, MacDonald perfectly appending a verse to his chronicle of Navy life in the Korean waters. Excellent people both, and each had forgot about what we call open source now. Like a Beatles hairstyle, it was unnamed, they just called it, if you saw the flick. I let Iser know some of the above this morning. I also suggested Browne is too contemplative for McCain’s muse. Browne has simple lyrics, the gift of a difficult time in which to write songs, and great drive, which is, I suppose, how we met in some desert locale. Rather than a Browne composition, I suggested Iser pass along to McCain a barter, that the Republicans give a play to Eugene Chrysler’s ‘Living on Closing Time’, a two decades old rockabilly tune from Austin, NYC; I think his site has a fee, if so, try the page on which the mp3 resides. What McCain wants to borrow is Americana. The mix of partisans he is aggregating from the Bush leadership fadeout is interesting. I wonder if he cares about the environment, and socioeconomic repressive conditions propagated in free trade agreements. It seems Barack Obama has plenty of room to create more than Clinton did, and certainly more than McCain’s coterie would permit AZ’s senator to attempt. There has been a paucity of creativity in these instruments for sharing mercantilist profits heard from the Democratic Party. Bill took them to the middle of the ’spectrum’, but there was scant room for the more enterprising branches of Bill’s party to contribute and grow in the process. I think this, in part, was what halted immigration reform. Bush regulatorily, unilaterally, did more for immigration reform than congress could accomplish, suspending environmental regulations, packing the immigration court bench, all the things you would expect a Republican exTX governor to exploit. Let’s hope Rick Perry wants to stay in local politics not the national scene.
Rick Perry has a Charlie Crist problem.
Too long since I attended to Lonestar politics. Molly Ivins on NPR during the exile of the 11 TX state senators in the Delay regerrymander, allowed as how she near swooned upon beholding RP’s coif, but that was in the days before there was the word /snark.
Oh my. Really? He does have that gelled up hair….
His wife threatened to make some sort of allegations during divorce proceedings, but the settlement apparently took care of that. Three people who should know have told me that Perry is a regular on the ’scene’ in Austin. And they’ve all brought it up with any prompting from me. I really don’t care how people spend their free time, but it’s a limiting factor in national Republican circles, at the moment.
Are there any plausible candidates for repub veep who can live up to the Moral Standards of the Religious Right?
Jeebus masaccio, the Religious Right can’t live up to the freaking moral standards of the Religious Right. That was kind of a rhetorical question eh?
Okay – For one and all, I have had a hitch in my giddyup. You can thank Bob Schacht @81 for that. My post will not be done for a while now. I apologize about that. I got consumed for a couple of hours by what Bob related to me (and in a week or two, you will all know why and will like the subject immensely I think. Really like.) and then there are Friday margaritas and a sunset. It will be up sometime tonight; but mostly ready for the morning. I think anyway. Sorry about that…
And wow is that a crappy sunset picture. It is from a loaner cell phone because mine bit the dust, I get a new iPhone Sunday. That is either the worst picture I have ever taken, or I have had far more margaritas than I think. Or both. Yikes.
I rather like it … but then I’ve just finished watching “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, so my tastes may have undergone transient warpage. Also, I’ve been watching grainy, low-light videos of a young Swedish angel singing — if you want to hear achingly beautiful music in a foreign tongue, take a listen.
Actually it was kind of a serious question: the idiots on tv seem to be saying McCain has to pick some one satisfactory to the crazy right wing, but I can’t think of anyone who lives up to the moral standards of the crazies but is really plausible as a candidate. Pawlenty? What a Putz.
I have to cop to some ignorance about Pawlenty. He just doesn’t hit the radar here, and I strain my feeble neurostructure just keeping up with the national, Arizona and west/southwest stuff sufficiently so that i don’t go looking for state level things in other areas. I am almost in the same boat regarding Kathleen Sebelius on the Dem side. She is supposedly wonderful, but what I know is that she gave a horrid Dem SOTU response in prime time. Phoenix Woman and Sara are in Minnesota though, and i have heard nothing good about Pawlenty from them.
I don’t know if there is someone the RR really feels comfortable with that is in play. In some ways, it seems as if Jindal may be the most up their alley; but he, lets be honest, presents some demographic problems for them. I know McCain, he won’t go with Jindal unless someone forces him to, and I don’t see there being that big of an effort on Jindal. Huckabee might could be in there, but i somehow think all sides of the equation think he is goofy and are uncomfortable with him. There is no good ground for the theocrats, and they no longer trust the Bush types now either. They got nothing in spite of how discontented they are.
Why is CNN featuring a back to back quiz of both candidates from a Megachurch charlitan? What do any of his questions have to do with fitness to be President and what does Rick Warren know about the qualifications and who is the God who is talking to Rick Warren and why is this God only talking to Warren? Do they email or text?
And I mispelled the racist Jerome Corsi’s name in mentioning his book.
Obama Hits Back at Mr. Swift Boat Racist Jerome Corsi
Pawlenty or Romney are proably the short two, but I’d love to see Leiberman or Clinton as VP on McCain’s ticket.
I had the same lack of info on Pawlenty and Sibelius as Bmaz describes. It’s not going to be Sibelius–I feel sure. I hope it’s Biden. And as to the main stream media aka MSM always making the reflex comment that Biden talks a lot–I’ll say this–most of what I hear Biden say is very well thought out, smart, real experience that can have pragmatic impact, and worth hearing (to me).
I did some reading on Pawlenty–I didn’t bother with Sibelius because she’s not going to be on the ticket, and I concur–a quintissential putz. I can’t find much to admire though in anyone on a short or longer list for McCain.
I noticed something @ Huff post that keeps irritating me like a dripping faucet that you can’t fix writ large–the insipid intrusion of religion into politics rearing it’s head once again. I don’t mean to at all impact on anyone’s religion/faith or their right to complete freedom.
However, I feel the degree it is so artificially injected by so many people into a political campaign is an accurate index as to this country’s terrible learning curve, and the feel to project people in our own image as a crutch for all kinds of psychodynamic reasons–not one of them favorable.
I read this:
Rick Warren’s Forum (Saturday Night) To Include Questions About Candidates’ Personal Lives
I’ve never been very high on Rick Warren and his whole ministery. When a superior court judge, and a deputy, and a federal treasury agent who unexplainedly was able to be building a $2 million dollar home were killed in a court room and just outside it because a county in Georgia was dumb enough to have a guns in the courtroom and a portly grandmother, Cynthia Hall, as a sherrif’s deputy alone with a young prisoner (who still has significant brain damage and sued the county) was badly beaten this emerged.
The county has already paid out millions in legal fees, and an award of the exact same amount of money to the judge’s widow that DOJ paid to Hatfill–$5.2 million. This all would have been avoided if the deputies used physical fitness and enough numbers to control their prisoners instead of a gun–but that seems to be completely lost on the county who still uses guns in the courtroom–although the feds don’t.
Nichols sought refuge in a woman’s apartment and they shared cocaine (which she was using) and she turned him in and she was given a big cash award by the same governor who is running out of water and praying for rain and about to lose a major court decision in an effort to get it.
What the media completely ignored was that her child had been taken away from her because her drug and other habits moved her aunt and other relatives to get custody of the child. A huge media blitz then emerged because she was reading Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Life and her attachment to it became larger than life. I didn’t think Warren espoused having a coke habbit that would cause you not to be able to raise your daughter when the other parent was gone, but what the hell.
In saying he is going to ask personal questions of Obama and McCain each for an hour (I suppose about their religion and extramarital affairs and love children analagous to the one people are claiming John Edwards now has), Warren said:
I’m going to ask them questions about character, competence, about values, vision, virtue, about their convictions in leadership, about their experience. And I’m going to deal with their personal life – because character matters. Their personal life does matter as a leader. God says so.
It’s not clear to me who the “God” is that says so, or how he talks to this God, or why this God is talking to Warren but I have a bias/suspicion against megachurches in general having known too much about people who have sworn by them.
I wonder why this God doesn’t ask for time on the teevee stations and tell us all what he/she/it thinks about the candidates, and I don’t expect that to happen soon.
I subscribe to Bill Maher’s take on the intrusion of religion into politics in this country. I also think it contributs significantly to this country being a Banana Republic, and happens in part because the bell shaped kid graduates high school now doing good to have read 5 classics.
I wonder if Vanderbilt in Nashville assigns any books to their students or other colleges even bother to do so anymore, because from what kids at high schools tell me, it would be the first damn time they read any books.
_______________
Showdown at the OK Corral in Georgia while Bushie Clears Brush in Crawford
Condi Rice is in Georgia–the one out of the US. And tanks are pushing forward. I wonder if Lil Goat reader who is clearing Brush down in Crawford Texas has sent troops to protect Condi because NYT says Russian tanks are bearing down on her location. I wonder if her Russian studies will stop/turn around the tanks. I think not.
A delusional McCain, pretending to be the President he will never be has dispatched two of the worst transgressors of human rights from the US Senate to the scene. He has dispatched his trusty lapdogs Joey the Leiberman and Lindsay the Graham, champions of the MSA, and everything the Bush administration has proposed.
The NYT reports:
Rice, in Georgia, Calls on Russia to Pull Out Now
[Russia has said “Forget about us giving them back after we took ‘em.”]
[I’m going to assume after the articles I’ve read, that those bodies laying in the streets of Georgia have not been put their by fellow Georgians–but that they have been killed for the most part by Russian soldiers and bombs, some outlaws, and some Ossetians who are the ones engaged in ethnic cleansing–not the Georgians.]
[If Russia is angry about the missle system, why don’t they take it out on the US instead of threatening Poland–after all it’s the US missle system that the US alleges is aimed not at Russia but the middle east as if anyone would be stupid enough to think that it couldn’t be used against Russia with the proximity of its location].
[I wonder if Condi closes the stupidly crafted “loophole” that Sarko should have known not to have included but Sarko needs oil from Russia badly as do all the European nations and does the US–if the tanks will be reading or if Putin will give a damn.
Maybe Rice will get a crash course in Russian affairs that she badly needs in the form of a college intro course right now.]
What has been difficult for me to understand in reading several accounts of the situation there is the “ethnic cleansing” aspect. Some commenters here and at FDL seem to blame Georgians for doing ethnic cleansing. But none of the news accounts from the best print media support that nor do accounts from respected reporters on the ground like the Australian Michael Ware who also reports for CNN aka Chicken Noodle Network, and print media.
In drilling down, there is a lot of looting and killing. Some of it is coming from the Russians and much of it is not. However, it seems clear that any ethnic cleansing seems to be coming from splinter groups in Ossetia who are Ossetians, not from Georgians at all.
It would appear that while Georgians may have hit trip wires that they shouldn’t have in retrospect, or misread that the US would back them up with troops the way both presidents Clinton and Bush have said they would do if China tried to reach out and takeover Taiwan fully, that Georgians are not taking part in the murders/ethnic cleansing/and destruction of their own property.
We have another resignation in honor of EW.
Ledeen leaves the AEI.
Thanks for the heads up. Let’s hope that Micheal “faster please” Ledeen will be held accountable for his bloody crimes.
OT She claims she’s headed to the Dem convention, but that’s not this weekend’s big story. Are EW/Mr EW/McCaffrey on the guest list for Ellen & Portia’s nuptials?
I also spent a good amount of time earlier reading the #1 best seller over at the bookstore, and the other anti-Obama book given big play in front of all the major Borders and Barnes and Nobles, so I didn’t have to buy them, and could buy Thomas Frank’s Wrecking Crew instead.
They are replete with not only errors, but concepts aimed at capitolizing on their audience–ignorant and uniformed irrespective of their profession or income.
Like McCain’s completely negative campaign now, they concentrate on topics that are completely devoid of issues trying to play up to biases that Obama is not a real citizen, that Obama “could have Kenyan” citizenship (p. 113 of Corsey’s book) and Corsey footnotes an authority he frequently likes referencing in a Saturday Night Live takeoff on footnoting and citations–himself.
He’s the footnote authority for himself a large percent of the time.
Sheridan” Can Obama Be Swiftboated?
BusinessWeek’s The Oil and the Glory blog has the Steve Levine post The Genocide in South Ossetia, which links to The Russian-Georgian War Was Preplanned in Moscow.
What’s becoming clear is that the recklessness and killing is not coming from Georgia–it’s coming from Russians and the Ossetians, and outlaws who may be hard to distinguish from the first two groups or are from them purely in it for the widespread looting that’s taking place.
I wonder what kind of security detail they’re sending for Veep Wannabe Leiberman who is make believe Sec State and make believe Sec Def Lindsay Graham who are playing out their delusions for a make believe President who will never see the light of the oval office.
Lawsuit against DOJ, and Schmeckles Gonzales, Goodling, Mike Elston, and Ester McDonald in D.C. District Court Expands
The clown, Jeff Taylor is scheduled to make another appearance next week, purporting this time to have “scientific” evidence that Ivins was the sole anthrax mailer to “counter doubts.”
B.I. Will Present Scientific Evidence in Anthrax Case to Counter Doubts
Just pulled the album — yes album –(copyright 1977) out of the basement and have it cranking on the turntable right now. That song, those songs were an important part of a difficult transition in my own life. So I’m particularly grateful that Jackson Browne is standing up for principle. Would that more, even politicians !! might do the same.
Hey DonS _ Don’t recall seeing your name before, Welcome! Believe it or not, I still have the vinyl too, and maybe 250 or so select other ones as well. All the new digital stuff is awful clean, portable and nice. So much so that you have to use it. But nothing beats the tone and warmth of vinyl played through tube amps. Nothing.
Whoever uses Mc in front of every insult is Mcstupid and it’s old.And he wouldn’t have been sued if he was Obama.
The bottom line is he will McLose on November 6 and Obama will be President. Then it will be even harder to sue Obama, and easier to sue McCain. And a lot of stupid people sue other stupid people and many of their lawyers are stupid.
McKissmyfatbutt
bmaz. I read here a lot, and followed Marcy before the FDL amalgamation, with occasional comment. I don’t comment much anymore; periodically on Steve Clemons blog.
As for the vinyl I’ve been holding on to a bunch; hoping someday my daughter will seem interested enough to take them off my hands. She grew up on early Jimmy Buffet, Dylan, John Prine, Eagles, Emmylou, Joni Mitchell, etc. So far, not much interest.