NADA - New American Dark Ages, other voices

This Week’s WTF?!

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Letters to the Editor

It’s Fact: Obama as Left as They Come
        HAVING READ Eugene Robinson’s column, “Swift Boat Author Out To Torpedo Obama As ‘Leftist,’ ” I am left with the question is he that dumb or is he just willfully blind? Frankly I doubt that Robinson is dumb, so it must be a case of him having something to hide on behalf of Obama!
        It is a fact that Obama has the most liberal voting record in the Senate. [Fact: That’s based on a single analysis of a few bills. I think Ted Kennedy would object.] He tells us that he wants to soak the rich and redistribute income on a “fairer” basis. [Fact: I haven’t heard any of those words in any such combination from Obama. Stop lying.] The socialists and communists believe “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.”  [Question: Relevance? Who are the socialists and communists in America? Come on, have the balls to spell it out.] He wants to allow the George Bush income-tax reductions to expire. [Yes! Please!]Then he wants to raise the rate of capital gains tax from 15 percent to 28 percent, which means that the federal government is going to take an additional 13 percent of the yearly earnings on your retirement accounts in tax.
        If you should sell your house and make a profit on the deal in inflated dollars, Obama wants to take 28 percent of that profit rather than the 15 percent presently taken. He wants to give us governmental-run medical and hospital care. Check with anyone who lives under a government-controlled medical system. The immediate effect is to ration medical care. Every one of these programs Obama wants to install is socialism — right out of Karl Marx’s “Das Capital.” [Yeah, I get it, you can’t call Obama a communist but you can keep implying it. Gutsy guy.]
        Jerome Corsi [a self-serving criminal right wing nut case] calls Obama a “leftist” [Is that a big insult among your ilk?] because that is exactly what he is. Obama is a socialist [Took you long enough], and you cannot get any further left than that, unless you are willing to take up arms to bring about the dictatorship of the proletariat — doing the same thing through ballot box rather than by the muzzle of a gun. The end result is the same. The only real difference between socialism and communism it how you get from here to there.
        Be very careful what you wish for, the price may be very high in deprivation of your individual freedom.
HAROLD A. TEETER

You poor, sad, pathetic man. How do you live with so much fear? No one has done more lately to curtail freedom in AmeriCo than Duhbya and Company. Wake up. peace, mjh

other voices

The Party of Fear and Hate

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Letters to the Editor

Albuquerque Shootings Show GOP Is Based in Hate
        A FEW WEEKS ago a gunman walked into a Universalist Church and shot and killed a number of people. Last week another gunman walked in Democratic headquarters in Arkansas and fatally wounded the chairman of the Democratic Party.
        In both instances the perpetrators were white males who hated “liberals.” Nobody has ever heard of a “liberal” shooting, stabbing or otherwise harming any other human being, because they espoused a different political ideology.
        The above incidents occur because the Republican Party — and its talk radio — constantly espouses hate. They do this through portraying all those who hold what they label as “liberal” views as unpatriotic, un-American, trying to destroy America and other characterizations structured to make people angry and to hate.
ALAN PEZARO

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Letters to the Editor

media

Well Said

Thin Line 

The ’50s phoned (it was wearing a smart red apron with matching heels and a lacy blouse) and it wants its sexism back. — Marisa Demarco, Alibi

Thin Line

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Three Boos for Reducing Hillary to ‘Cheerleader 

I WAS APPALLED to open the paper Monday morning and see Senator Hillary Clinton described as “The Cheerleader” when she was here as a prestigious leader in a major political party.
       She was here to raise money for the Democratic Party, which is a serious business for any party. She also established herself as the first serious female presidential candidate in U.S. history. Major political fundraising is high-stakes business, usually done by famous white men in the past, none of whom were described as cheerleaders except for maybe George Bush, who actually was one in college.
       Later in the article her clothing was described as if she were in a fashion show. It reminded me of how my father’s hometown, podunk newspaper regularly described women who were at tea parties in the fifties.
       The Journal ought to do better than that. The female author (doubly distressing) did not comment on any of the men’s appearances. I was not a Hillary supporter in the primary, but I think the Journal owes her and its readers a huge apology.
       ANN DUNLAP
       Albuquerque

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Three Boos for Reducing Hillary to ‘Cheerleader

Election, media

Distressing Quote

Garcia, 71, lives in Doña Ana, just north of Las Cruces. She thinks Obama has come off as condescending and arrogant.

“I don’t know one single Hispanic over 50 who will cast a vote for Obama,” she said, conceding that “there have always been conflicts between blacks and browns.

New Mexico : Betting on the West : The Rocky Mountain News By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon, Rocky Mountain News

– – – – –

A tip of the hat to Heath Haussamen for the link. While my hat is doffed, let me smack him upside the head with it for his feckless Liberal Blogosphere nonsense.

Presumably Haussamen didn’t mean to say the entire blogosphere is majority liberal — though, that is what his word choice implies. Perhaps, he’s just a lousy writer.

A more moderate individual would note that every issue has extremists on every side — these are angry, divisive times and fighting is in our blood and zeitgeist.

However, be clear that there is a straight-line tradition from Watergate, the GOP “Southern Strategy” (Message to White People: Be afraid, be very afraid.) through Willie Horton, to Bush/Rove’s anti-McCain tactics in SC 2000, and on to Swiftboating. Are there ugly, excessive liberals? Of course. However, Lush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Duhbya, Cheney, the Bathtub Jerk, Ralph Reid, ad maxima nauseum, have proven there is but one fundamental Conservative belief: Win at any cost. To the Radical Wrong, everything is warfare and war allows for anything (including torture and shredding the Constitution).

Liberalism just doesn’t attract the same caliber of stormtroopers and *dangerous* zealots. We dream we can win without lying, cheating, stealing or bludgeoning. (The only tactics left to Republicans in 2008, thanks to DUHbya.)

I had mistaken Haussamen for a journalist. He’s just another blogger — my cohort. peace, mjh

Election

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.

Election

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

Election

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

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams