If McCain Can Distance Himself From Parsley and Hagee, Why Not Scheunemann?

Is John McCain
Clueless
ON ALL COUNTS?

So John McCain doesn't know how many houses he has. Fine. He doesn't know about the doctrines of Rod Parsley or John Hagee. O.K. Now he seems to know nothing about one of his top advisers. He's looking clueless.

We've talked about Randy Scheunemann - Sen. John McCain foreign policy adviser- before, but let's recap:

Schueneman's scorecard to date:

• President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq created by Project for New American Century
• Board member of New American Century
• Former Security Aide for Trent Lott
• Associated with Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi
• Adviser to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
• Co-owner of Washington Lobbying firm Orion Strategies which lobbied for Caspian Alliance and the NRA
• Paid lobbyist (5 yrs) for Stephen Payne who is being investigated for soliciting meetings with Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice in exchange for donations to the George W. Bush Presidential Library.
• Registered lobbyist for the Republic of Georgia and under a $200,000 contract when Presidential hopeful John McCain was encouraged to speak to Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili

NOW THE LATEST:

In 2007, when Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), introduced a bill prohibiting gun sales to suspected terrorists, Schuenemann lobbied against the bill on behalf of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (a gun-maker’s association).

Hinting at yet another conflict of interest, the McCain campaign “refused to answer questions about whether the senator supports or opposes the White House plan to close the loophole” giving expanded gun rights to terrorists, reports Newsweek.

John McCain doesn't seem to know anything about the people who endorse him nor about the people who are his advisers.

Clueless.

Just a thought.

And if he's gonna be "McSame",
he's certainly gonna be CLUELESS.

It's Idaho For Crissakes!

One Hallmark Card You Won't See... In Idaho!

Last week, Hallmark began producing greeting cards that recognize the unions between same-sex couples. Soon after, the American Family Association announced that it was launching a protest of Hallmark, claiming that the company was “promoting a lifestyle” that is “unhealthy.” Now, the AP is reporting that seven Hallmark stores in Idaho are refusing to carry the new same-sex marriage card.

C'mon people! We're talking IDAHO! The state's so backward even Bo Gritz was forced to leave it for Nevada!

And Idaho Senator Larry Craig...need we say more?

The American Family Association also has a rather jaundiced view against gays: In 2007, the AFA spoke out against IKEA for featuring homosexual families in their television ads.

(NOTE: The founder of the AFA, David Wildman, has been cited by The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress as extremely anti-Semitic and the California AFA leader, Scott Lively, is co-founder of Watchmen on the Walls, an extremist group that promotes violence against gays)

Michelle Obama and the WOW Factor: Is She TOO Intelligent?

O.K., most of us (I'm including Republicans and Christofascists in this too) agree that Michelle Obama is not just a good speaker, but a GREAT speaker. As a consequence, however, her intelligence, came through as well. The American public has long had a love/hate relationship with very intelligent people: they are keenly suspicious of them. Intelligent people (and intellectuals - a slight difference there) are set aside by their intelligence - or, rather, set ABOVE others in their intelligence. One of the reasons we have such a dimwit of a president is that people thought that Al Gore was too intelligent for them. Bush's (fake) folksy stance seemed more familiar. The guy's been trying to channel Will Rogers now for eight years. It's a good thing Will is dead, or he wouldn't take kindly to the insult. It's correct to say that Michelle Obama won many, many African-American hearts (and voters) because she addressed 50% of the speech to them - in a positive way. So far, the Obama campaign has been at least 75% positive. That might change. Let's hope not. McCain has run some very negative ads and here's what he said tonight on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno:

McCain: Look, we all don’t like negative ads. I thought the ads we put up were an attempt to be humorous — and I thought they were very funny — and also differentiate between Sen. Obama. I think that the tone of this campaign is very rough, I think we all agree

HUMOROUS? Senator McCain, humor in a presidential campaign cannot be handled lightly. Mark Twain told us that the most effective weapon in the world is humor. Treating a serious situation (like the election of a president) with humor smacks of carelessness - like a kid playing with matches or knives. And I haven't yet run across anyone who thought your campaign ads were funny. Paris Hilton certainly didn't appreciate one, because it belittled her. And she shot back - with real humor, and a great amount of style.

Michelle Obama has style as well, but it's a style comfortable with intelligence: graduate of Princeton, Juris Doctor from Harward Law School, Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago, 58th of "The Harvard 100," a list of the prior year's most influential Harvard alumni (Her husband was listed as #4)

Jennifer Hunter of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote about one speech of hers in Iowa,

"Michelle was a firebrand, expressing a determined passion for her husband's campaign, talking straight from the heart with eloquence and intelligence."

Again, the "I" word.

God, this is going to be a frustrating race!

Just a thought.

Watch this video about how FOX "News" treats Michelle Obama. They must really despise her intelligence.

Another Republican Dimwit

Ouch! Her Jubilation Must Have Hurt!

And You Thought Bush Had Cornered the Market!

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told OneNewsNow that the U.S. doesn’t need environmental advocates such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) because Jesus saved Earth already:

[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she’s just trying to save the planet. … We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet — we didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that.

Besides hitting the Speaker of the House over the head with religion, Bachmann proved that she needs to go back to grade school for her awful grammar and reasoning:

1. "Just trying to save the planet" has no longer been considered a "fanatical" term. It's used very commonly and in no way connotes exclusivity or bravado.
2. Jesus saved SOULS, not the physical earth. When Nancy Pelosi speaks of the earth, she is speaking about that big round ball (O.K., not quite) we live on, the one Bachmann's ancestors, as well as everybody else before her, have ruined.
3. "Someone" and "they", while mildly correct is very awkward. Instead, it should be "Someone" and "He"
4. Unless Nancy Pelosi lived 2,000 years ago, the proper form would be "we don't need Nancy Pelosi to do that."

Besides trying to sabotage the English language and belittling Pelosi about a subject even Christofascist Pat Robertson agrees with, Bachmann should being home studying and trying to pass the sixth grade.

Another reason I wouldn't want to be in her district:

Joseph Wright of Derby - Vesuvius from Portici - Detail

Joseph Wright of Derby - Vesuvius from Portici - Detail
Originally uploaded by Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer

Mount Vesuvius' eruption on Aug. 24, 79 CE was not the most destructive of any volcano in history. That title goes to the volcano located on the Greek island of Thera. Hundreds of megatons of ash and debris darkened every island and country within a radius of 1000 miles.

So if Vesuvius is not technically the worst eruption, why is it so important in history?

It is a reminder that people, cities, whole cultures can be erased from the earth almost without a trace. Vesuvius buried Herculaneum for so many years that the existence of the small city past into the realm of legend. Maybe that can never happened again: TV crews would be on hand to recording everything.

Dick Cheney: Scandals Up, Approval Ratings Down - Past Dan Quayle Level

Honestly, The Scariest T-Shirt I've Ever Seen!

Oh, The Humiliation!
He's Even Lower Than Dan Quayle!

For years, I thought George Bush was really Dan Quayle in disguise. Of course, that is an insult to Quayle. But now, Dan Quayle has something to chirp about (since quayle don't crow): a new scandal may push Dick Cheney down past Quayle's dismal approval rating!

Newsweek reports that in a conversation “secretly tape-recorded by the FBI on June 25, 2006,” Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) “discussed ways to get a pipeline bill through the Alaska Legislature with Bill Allen, an oil-services executive accused of providing the senator with about $250,000 in undisclosed financial benefits.” Stevens promised Allen, “I’m gonna try to see if I can get some bigwigs from back here and say, ‘Look … you gotta get this done’.” Two days later, Vice President Cheney undertook the unusual move of writing a letter to the Alaska Legislature urging members to “promptly enact” a bill to build the pipeline.

NYT July 7, 2007:

Vice President Dick Cheney’s popularity has hit an all-time low, with recent polling by The New York Times and CBS News suggesting that he has replaced Dan Quayle as the most unpopular vice president in recent history.

Immunity Is Cheney personally immune to all of the links to skullduggery? Doesn't he care what people think? Crazy me to even ask such a question. One look at Cheney and you realize that he really doesn't care much about anything. Even in 2004, when Kerry made an inocuous comment about Mary Cheney's sexual orientation, Lynne Cheney blew up, the press ate it up and Dick Cheney didn't look as if he felt much of anything.

An extremely secretive man who shows bursts of anger but only spots of passion can be a very dangerous person: to look at Cheney is to ask: "What is he NOT telling us?" He is scheming the grand coup de tat, isn't he?


A note on Dan Quayle
He does have a somewhat strange legacy: read this from wikipedia:

The United States Vice Presidential Museum at the Dan Quayle Center is the only Vice Presidential museum in the United States. It is located in Huntington, Indiana, one of the towns where Dan Quayle grew up. The Museum is downtown in a renovated church, the former First Church of Christ, Scientist, Huntington, Indiana, and has two floors, the first featuring the history of all the Vice Presidents, and the second housing memorabilia and a theater.

And one last quote I couldn't resist, by the inimitable John Cleese:

If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking "Do you want fries with that?"

Now, come on, do you actually think he wrote it?

Is It Possible To Be Dumber Than Dubya? Dick Morris is Certainly Trying To Be

No, Morris' Reasoning Is More Twisted.

Besides being the author of a book with the world's longest title* Dick Morris is a conundrum. Actually, he started out as a conundrum, then evolved by stages into a convoluted conundrum and now has become a rather comic convoluted conundrum with schizophrenic tendencies. He started political life working for the Clintons in Arkansas, refused to advise Bill Clinton during his first campaign, got involved in the second campaign, let a hooker listen in to his conversations with the President to impress her, then became a political "pundit" with no direction whatsoever. He also prides himself as a political prognosticator of sorts but has yet to be completely accurate about any of his predictions. He once predicted that the 2008 race would be between Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice.

He's been described as "the most ruthless political consultant" (BBC). He's either a Jewish Catholic or a Catholic Jew, but neither religion is talking. He came up with the political strategy of "triangulation" - appealing to a diverse group of voters while distancing one's self from either party.

He now says that Obama is weak on foreign policy because:

"Where he’s wrong is that we went into Iraq at the invitation of the government, not as an invasion."

If you don't believe me, see it for yourself (below). I have the strangest feeling that he's an implant from aliens designed to keep them in stitches about our politics.


*Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want To Kill Talk Radio, The Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, And Washington Lobbyists For Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us...And What To Do About It