Swiftboats Arrive

 

Discredited author Jerome Corsi was back on Hannity & Colmes for a second time last night, 8/12/08, to spread more anti-Obama sentiment. Despite the fact that many falsehoods and distortions have been exposed in Corsis book, the show has yet to put on a guest to detail or rebut them. To date, Corsi has always appeared alone. During a prior appearance with Hannity, Corsi hyped the Obama-as-dangerous-black-radical meme. Last night, Corsi added the Obamas-not-really-a-Christian-but-a-Muslim smear.

News Hounds: Discredited Jerome Corsi Given Another Favorable Platform On FOX News

Yoni Goldstein on Jerome Corsi’s lie-packed biography of Barack Obama – Full Comment

Corsi. He is notoriously anti-Liberal, at the core, a Republican activist hell-bent on doing what he can to make sure the Democrats don’t run America. The Obama Nation, is nothing but hardcore-right propaganda. What’s worse, its author has admitted as much yet the book is already a New York Times bestseller, which means that lots of people out there are buying a pack of lies, and perhaps even worse, Jerome Corsi will be getting tons of airtime to further spread his untruths.

Yoni Goldstein on Jerome Corsi’s lie-packed biography of Barack Obama – Full Comment

Fight the Smears | Unfit for Publication

Unfit for Publication One of the most vile smear peddlers of the 2004 election has found a new target. Jerome Corsi just published a new book full of rehashed distortions and the same old lies about Barack Obama, and the right-wing noise machine is in full gear promoting it. In 2004, Corsi helped launch the Swift Boat smear campaign with a book of distortions and lies he wrote about John Kerry. Its up to you to spread the truth, so here it is. Weve posted some of the facts about Corsi and his desperate fabrications on this page, but there is even more in our PDF: Unfit for Publication.

Los Angeles Times: McCain’s broken marriage and fractured Reagan friendship

Family values? peace, mjh

McCain, who is about to become the GOP nominee, has made several statements about how he divorced Carol and married Hensley that conflict with the public record. In his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For,” McCain wrote that he had separated from Carol before he began dating Hensley. “I spent as much time with Cindy in Washington and Arizona as our jobs would allow,” McCain wrote. “I was separated from Carol, but our divorce would not become final until February of 1980.” An examination of court documents tells a different story. McCain did not sue his wife for divorce until Feb. 19, 1980, and he wrote in his court petition that he and his wife had “cohabited” until Jan. 7 of that year — or for the first nine months of his relationship with Hensley. Although McCain suggested in his autobiography that months passed between his divorce and remarriage, the divorce was granted April 2, 1980, and he wed Hensley in a private ceremony five weeks later. McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife. …

Navy officers in the squadron McCain commanded in 1977 said they did not know anything was wrong. “When I went to parties at their home, everything seemed fine,” said Mike Akin, a naval flying instructor. “They seemed to be a happily married couple.”
But two years later, while on a trip as a Navy liaison with the Senate, McCain spied Hensley at the Honolulu reception. In a recent television interview with Jay Leno on the “Tonight Show,” Cindy McCain joked about how the Navy captain had pursued her. “He kind of chased me around . . . the hors d’oeuvre table,” she said. “I was trying to get something to eat and I thought, ‘This guy’s kind of weird.’ I was kind of trying to get away from him.”
John McCain was 42; she was 24.
During the next nine months, he would fly to Arizona or she would come to the Washington area, where McCain and Carol had a home.
Carol McCain later told friends, including Reynolds and Fitzwater, that she did not know he was seeing anyone else.

Los Angeles Times: McCain’s broken marriage and fractured Reagan friendship

Print Barack in the Saddle

 

MC: If you become president, how will you handle having to negotiate with countries that are committing human-rights violations against women?

BO: I believe there’s a spectrum. In a place like Darfur, rape is used as a military weapon there are no excuses, and you simply don’t abide them. You mobilize the international community to change behavior in those countries. When it comes to countries like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or others in the Middle East where women are still in second-class positions, it is important for us to recognize that the culture is not going to transform overnight. But we won’t be bashful about speaking out on these issues and affirming a core belief in the equality of women. My mother specialized in international development. And her focus was on helping women get a foothold in the economy, microfinancing helping them buy a loom or a sewing machine, or some cows so that they could then sell the milk. She was very clear that the best indicator of how a country is going to develop is how it treats its women and whether it educates its girls. And so, part of the argument we want to make is not just based on our values and our ideals, but also on practicality letting countries know you’re not going to develop as quickly if you’ve got one hand tied behind your back. You’re not going to do as well economically if all this enormous talent represented in your female population is undereducated and not given the same opportunities as men.

MC: Discussing the importance of reading to kids, you said in the town meeting that you’ve read the Harry Potter books to your daughters. Who’s your favorite character?

BO: All the characters were wonderful . . . Dumbledore’s a very cool guy.

MC: Well, he’s gay, apparently.

BO: [laughs] No comment on that.

MC: So, Rolling Stones or Beatles?

BO: Rolling Stones.

MC: Iron Man or Batman?

BO: Batman.

MC: If your mom were still alive, what would she think of all this?

BO: She would be bursting with pride. I don’t think so much about me as about her grandchildren our daughters and my niece. For her to see these three beautiful, graceful, highly opinionated girls, that would bring her great joy.

Find this article at: http://www.marieclaire.com/world/news/barack-obama-interview-women

Print Barack in the Saddle

An Antichrist Obama in McCain Ad?

Please, god, spare us these small-minded dimwits. peace, mjh

As the ad begins, the words “It should be known that in 2008 the world shall be blessed. They will call him The One” flash across the screen. The Antichrist of the Left Behind books is a charismatic young political leader named Nicolae Carpathia who founds the One World religion (slogan: “We Are God”) and promises to heal the world after a time of deep division. One of several Obama clips in the ad features the Senator saying, “A nation healed, a world repaired. We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for.” The visual images in the ad, which Davis says has been viewed even more than McCain’s “Celeb” ad linking Obama to the likes of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, also seem to evoke the cover art of several Left Behind books. But they’re not the cartoonish images of clouds parting and shining light upon Obama that might be expected in an ad spoofing him as a messiah. Instead, the screen displays a sinister orange light surrounded by darkness and later the faint image of a staircase leading up to heaven. Perhaps the most puzzling scene in the ad is an altered segment from The 10 Commandments that appears near the end. A Moses-playing Charlton Heston parts the animated waters of the Red Sea, out of which rises the quasi-presidential seal the Obama campaign used for a brief time earlier this summer before being mocked into retiring it. The seal, which features an eagle with wings spread, is not recognizable like the campaign’s red-white-and-blue “O” logo. That confused Democratic consultant Eric Sapp until he went to his Bible and remembered that in the apocalyptic Book of Daniel, the Antichrist is described as rising from the sea as a creature with wings like an eagle.

An Antichrist Obama in McCain Ad? — Printout — TIME

Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes | U.S. | Reuters

 Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes | U.S. | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.

The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.

More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.

During that time corporate sales in the United States totaled $2.5 trillion, according to Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who requested the GAO study.

Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes | U.S. | Reuters

A Modern Fable

Once upon a time, a tortoise and a hare were running for president. The hare ran rings around the tortoise, who griped, “yeah, sure he’s fast, but can he lead?” “Sure he’s a celebrity, but can he lead?” “Sure, he’s beating me, but can he lead?”

The hare didn’t listen the tortoise. (Truthfully, he was so far ahead he could scarcely hear the old crank.) He ran on, steady and true, to the cheers of the massive crowds near the finish line.

Miles, back, the tortoise’s few supporters grumbled. “This tortoise isn’t slow enough.” “He’s shuffling in the wrong direction.” “I miss the prince who turned into a turd.” The tortoise didn’t listen. (He couldn’t really hear all that well.) He plodded on, grumbling about how unfair it was to race a hare with all the advantages hares naturally have in a society dominated by old tortoises.

Closer to the finish line, angry turtles appeared among the crowd. “He’s a celebrity, he can’t lead.” “He’s biased against tortises!” “He hates what we love and loves what we hate.” “The biased media shows him closer to the finish line.” “Tax! Tax! Tax!”

The race was over: the better runner won. It seems celebrity and inspiration aren’t bad ingredients for leadership, whereas whining is for losers. Meanwhile, the tortoises gathered over a cup of old turtle soup to argue how best to undermine the winner. peace, mjh

I Feel the Incentive to Give this Guy the Finger

Michael Boskin, former head of the President’s Council on Economic Advisers under Present George H.W. Bush, concludes that Senator Obama’s proposed increased top tax rates would decrease the incentive to work and cause serious problems in the economy.

Huh. I thought being stinking rich decreased one’s incentive to work. If you’re poor, you have the greatest incentive to work: starvation. Unless, of course, you’re completely demoralized by the belief that only the Rich have rights and opportunities.

Are Republicans and Independents really going to swallow the whole Tax and Spend bullshit yet again? Can they really ignore the fact that, indeed, we *need* to spend some money on something besides endless war, and, gasp, maybe the Rich are in a position to help? peace, mjh