Spawning A New Generation Of Republicans

Fools For Fuel

"Our entire economy depends on the expectation that energy will be plentiful, available, and affordable. Nations like Venezuela and Iran can use oil and gas as political and economic weapons by manipulating the marketplace. Half of our trade deficit goes toward buying oil from abroad, and some of that money ends up in the hands of terrorists."



"During our first oil crisis, in 1973, we imported 40% of our oil. Today, we import 60%. We’re like someone who won’t go to the dentist until he feels pain. Right now, we’re close to the point where the pain has become intolerable. The next administration is going to have to chart a long-term strategy and plan. This is going to take the same kind of leadership as going to the moon did in the 1960s."

Gen. Jim Jones (USMC, Ret.)
Former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO

Troopergate Alaska Style

"Hold me accountable," Sarah Palin

From the Alaska Daily Journal...

Governor is stonewalling the Troopergate investigation

Gov. Sarah Palin is taking the wrong approach to Troopergate. She should be practicing the open and transparent, ethical and accountable government she promised when running for governor and boasts about now that she's on the national stage.

Instead, Gov. Palin has begun stonewalling the Legislature's attempt to get the bottom of allegations that she, her family or staff violated ethical or state personnel rules.

As a result, the Troopergate allegations hang over Palin's future and cloud her candidacy for vice president.

The allegations are that she, her family or administration improperly pressured then-Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire Gov. Palin's ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, who had been in the middle of a custody dispute with Palin's sister.

In July, when legislators started talking about conducting an investigation, Palin denied any wrongdoing and said she welcomed an investigation.

"Hold me accountable," she said.

Read more...

You Can Say We Weren't Warned

"I suggest that this is a good time to think soberly about our responsibilities to our descendants – those who will ring out the Fossil Fuel Age."

Adm. Hyman G. Rickover
Father of the nuclear Navy
1957

Karl Rove- Alive, Well and Stirring the Pot in Georgia

We Are All Georgians?

Karl Rove participated in a meeting at Yalta in the Crimea, at the place where Stalin, Churchill and FDR carved up the World in 1945. The Crimea is now part of Ukraine.

The weekend event, held at the Livadia Palace, was the 5th annual YES (Yalta European Strategy) conference. Mr. Rove was a panelist on a Saturday morning plenary session: Elections in Russia and the USA: impact on Ukraine and Europe. The panel, chaired by Richard Haas, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, also included veteran Democratic speechwriter Bob Shrum.

Mr. Rove is a fugitive from a House Judiciary subcommittee subpoena, which summoned him to testify at a hearing on political interference at the Department of Justice, and is expected to be held in Contempt of Congress. For some unknown reason, Mr. Rove’s lawyer did not inform the House committee staffers that he was scheduled to participate in the YES conference in Ukraine.

Many of Mr. Rove’s neo-con cronies have been consultants during Ukraine’s elections, bankrolled by financier Rinat Akhmetov, said to be the richest man in Europe (assets: US $31.1 billion). Mr. Akhmetov is the major funder of the Party of Regions (Partiya Regioniv), the political party of pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich.

Prime Minister Yanukovich, from the Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine, was formerly considered a Putin puppet but is now even more popular than Ukraine President Victor Yushchenko. The American consultants do for Mr. Yanukovich and company what they do for U.S. Republicans: sell oligarchy as populism.

Who are the American lobbyists working for Mr. Yanukovich? You recently heard about one of them, Richard H. “Rick” Davis. He headed the McCain campaign until he was “outed” as a professional lobbyist and registered agent of a foreign country. Which country? The Republic of Ukraine.

Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Imagine this scenerio!
The RNC builds up war hero McCain and conflict between Georgia and Russia escalates.
Guess who wins the election then?

Obama Gets A Salute From The Kernel

American Corn Growers Association Endorses Obama



WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2008 (RuralWire) – The American Corn Growers Association (ACGA) has announced their endorsement of U.S. Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States.

“When we compared the official policy statements and voting records of the two contenders for the White House, we identified an obvious choice for farm families and rural America,” announced Keith Bolin, ACGA president and a corn and hog farmer in Obama’s home state of Illinois. “We have closely studied the on-line agricultural and rural policy statements of the two candidates and their voting records. Following a meeting with the Obama campaign at our board conference in Omaha last week, the decision was clear to us. ACGA endorses and supports the election of Senator Obama for President of the United States.”

“At this time of great opportunity to rebuild not only rural America, but all America through an aggressive national commitment to renewable energy of all kinds, the voting record and policy statements of Senator Obama and Senator McCain indicate very contrasting differences,” added Bolin.

Read more @ WisBusines.com.

Don't Like the Facts?..... Change Them

IN the 24 hours before the McCain campaign put the finishing touches on its surprise announcement Friday that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska would be the Republican vice presidential candidate, one Wikipedia user was putting the finishing touches on her biography on the site.

Beginning at 2 a.m Eastern time on Thursday, a Wikipedia user with the name YoungTrigg began an overhaul of the article, adding compelling stories about her upbringing, including that “she earned the nickname ‘Sarah Barracuda’ because of her intense play” as point guard for her high school basketball team and that she and her father “would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school.”

Many details were culled from, and footnoted to, the book “Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment on Its Ear,” by Kaylene Johnson.

Soon enough, YoungTrigg pivoted from the biographical to the political, adding that Ms. Palin had high approval ratings as governor and that, as mayor, she had “kept her campaign promises, reducing her own salary, as well as reducing property taxes 60 percent.”

As governor, YoungTrigg wrote, her “tenure is noted for her willingness to take on oil companies” and that she has been called “a ‘politician of eye-popping integrity.’ ” Both of those statements were attributed to a profile in the conservative Weekly Standard magazine.

Read More

61 Days To The 2008 Election

A Republican & The FOX News "Journalists" Discuss Protesting

Had to work again today and wasn't able to take part in the St. Paul street theater. Thanks to the modern miracle of Internet video posting, I was able to keep up with the action outside the convention center. Evidently, the streets around the Excel Center unexpectedly filled with people running out of the Center last night. Apparently they were escaping from the potential to suffer from acute drowsiness during Fred Thompson's speech.

The video below makes brings up some interesting points about identification of the police. On of the convention delegates is quite appalled by the "Darth Vader" look of the police. The delegate gives the impression that he actually favors Ron Paul. I suppose we will see video of him being forced to site through Joe Lieberman's speech as part of an attempt to move him back more toward McCain's brand of Republicanism. A brand not too long ago referred to as "socialism" by radio talker Mark Levine -- who said McCain was to the left of Hillary...



Next we have the FOX News morning crew -- I think. I say this because I don't have cable or dish TV and still rely on antenna-based welfare TV. However, I should point out, the wife was all fired up to get dish TV until the Brett Farve soap opera. That incident combined with a couple of recent breakfast outings at the Hudson Perkins where we were forced to watch CNN News' constant running of Sarah Palin's selection as GOP VP and other some other mindless political horse race news pulled the plug on any dish network this year. We did however spend our Bush/Congress stimulus check on two HD TVs. Since the stimulus money was borrowed from China we tried very hard to buy American made TVs. Unfortunately, we ended up with China TVs. Isn't interesting how the global economy has impacted the economic multiplier effect?

That said, I profess to be very ignorant about what actually goes on on FOX News. I own the documentary Out FOXED and find it very interesting. Being a highly respected Internet journalist myself, I'm expected to be up-to-date on "fair and balanced" journalism. Be that as it may, the following video shows an excellent example of the on-their-knees, anti-democracy journalism practiced on FOX...I've heard Al Franken talk about this on the totally unbiased airwaves of Air America radio.



After watching these videos, I am sure you will notice the gender ties of the color pink and the conflicting views of watch is right and wrong in America and how people of different perspectives see things.

And so it goes...

Of course, as I've been busy updating you with today's convention news and following the Twins, extra-innings lose to Toronto on espn.com, I missed the Sarah Palin speech on the RNC convention website. However, I'm sure Wisconsin Public Radio will have somebody talking about it tomorrow morning on my drive into work. If that is the case, I will be listening to my new CDs that I scored today: James McMurtry's "Just Us Kids" and a compilation of DOc and Merle Watson stuff called "Sittin' Here Picking The Blues" and an excellent "Best of" double CD of the New Grass Revival.

I'm wandering outside the convention coverage perimeter here, but the McMurtry stuff is excellent. His last one "Childish Things" is even better. On the way back from CD shopping at Border's, the eastbound lanes of 94 were crowed and moving along at 60 when there was a brown flash ahead and brakes coming on. A young deer tried to cross the freeway and got smacked in the hind leg and it headed for the west bound lane and ran in front of me. Poor thing had three good legs and one broken one. It was still covering a lot of ground, as it ran for its life. It reminded me out a three-legged dog I used to know on one of my bike riding routes. I hoped for the best of the little deer. However, it was running towards Michelle Bachman's house in Woodbury and she was last seen hugging Mitt Romney at the State Fair. She might not be a big help.

If you think it's bad being a deer caught in the headlights, running full blast into four lanes of eastbound, freeway traffic at high noon on a cloudless day doesn't look like a better option.

But then again, I remembered how the three-legged dog could give me a good run for my money. He wasn't going to let three legs slow him down. We became go friends over the years -- in a Sheepdog and Wiley Coyote sort of way. The is actually a web site about three-legged dogs: www.tripaws.com.



Well I must sign off for the night. The alpha dog is barking down the steps and telling to quit looking at Internet porn. I don't have the heart to tell her that I am actually covering the RNC convention for all you curious people out the in cyberspace.

One final political note. During our noontime, world issues walk at work today, one of the participants forwarded us an important insight from his 70-something dad. His dad said, concerning McCain's VP pick, "MCCain might be old, but his eyesight is still good." I told that to the wife and she reminded me that "all men are pigs -- even the good ones."

McCain Doesn't Like Madonna's "Sweet & Sticky"

The campaign of John McCain went head-to-head with Madonna today after the 50-year-old pop diva appeared to compare the Republican candidate to Hitler and Robert Mugabe.

Madonna, who kicked off her “Sticky and Sweet” world tour at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff yesterday, made the swipe during a performance of Get Stupid, when Mr McCain’s image was flashed up alongside images of the Führer and Zimbabwean dictator, as well as destruction and global warming.

Read more @ Time.

62 Days Till The 2008 Election

"Freedom In America"...

More Than Just Title Of A Hit Country Song

It's one thing for the police to put on a display of force to control the idiots of anarchy trying to stir up trouble at the RNC Convention in St. Paul. It's another thing to arrest credential journalists trying to get information on what is happening to their fellow journalists. From what I've been reading about these protests, if you are out of the specific protest boundaries and the police are moving you back with night sticks, etc., they aren't taking time to check press credentials. The policy of the RNC security operation must be "take them down now and ask questions later."




Part of me thinks these reporters and camera people must think their credentials give them some kind of Superman protection. If you notice, reporters gets killed and maimed in war zones. I'm guessing the police aren't handing out business cards that say "Welcome to Minnesota Nice."

Lest we forget, there are thousands of cops from all over getting paid extra to wear riot gear and test out state of the art crowd control weapons and tactics. I'm not sure how the local Twin Cities media is reporting this. I haven't seen any of them doing up-links from the riots.

The video below must have been shot down along Shepard Road. My guess is the protesters or trouble makers are trying to go up Cedar to get near the Excel Center. Obviously, they aren't welcome. Anybody know when these protesters come from?

I can't really tell what causes the police to start firing the smoke bombs into the crowd. Obviously, they aren't going to let the bullshit get too close for comfort. It looks like the tactics are working to keep the idiot fringe away from their destination.




The footage below is very disturbing. You see the pain and agony that some protesters receive for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, I have no idea if they are in off-limits areas -- probably -- and what they are protesting. Breaking store front windows is bullshit. I believe the point of this video in to give some sympathy for the protesters. But there is no narration and maybe they are getting what they deserve.

As St. Paul Mayor Coleman said, "This is a time for people to engage in proper political dialogue ... we will continue to allow that to happen in the city of St. Paul. We will send a very loud and clear message to those who choose to break the law and endanger the safety of others. We will pursue you, and we will not let this stand."




Peaceful protest is one thing. Unchecked violence and mayhem in the street is another. Are the protesting the two-party system? I've been told the Republicans are responsible for the Iraq war. It seems to me that a large number of Democrats voted to go to war. Hindsight and excess might make good political rhetoric, but I don't by it. Democrats who voted for the war in Iraq where either for it or didn't do their homework...maybe they were too busy watching the polls or prostituting their ethics for campaign contributions.

The other thing these anarchists or idiots do is make the Democratic Party look bad. They think they are making the Republicans look bad, but I don't see it that way. Likewise, if you think the St. Paul Police are in charge of crowd control at the RNC, you've been watching too many episodes of Mayberry RFD.

Watching these and other videos makes my skin crawl. It crawls because of the protesters and it crawls because of the police actions -- especially against the reporters and camera people.

Well that's it for tonight. Unlike a few thousand idiots wearing bandannas over their face, I have to get up and go to work tomorrow and help pay for the taxes going to pay for the upcoming police brutality lawsuits and the jail food for anarchists. It's times like this that one's pride of being an American slumps a bit.

64 Days Left Till The Election

Sarah Palin: An Excellent Choice McCain VP



Has anyone explored the possibility of using bullshit as an alternative fuel source? After a long weekend mixed with serious shopping, a couple of mornings of heavy duty gravel work on the driveway and three afternoons of bicycling into serious headwinds, I was still able to get in a few face-to-face discussions on the 2008 Presidential race.

One conversational encounter at the local convenience store prove quite enlightening. I stopped for water, juice and a couple of those Blue Bunny Cool Tubes, i.e. push ups and overheard an interesting political conversation between the heavyset guy and the blond girl working together behind the counter. The conversation was loud and in progress, as I shopped my way to the counter. This was on Saturday.

"I'm not going to vote for her just because she's a woman," said the girl. "I have not idea what this Palin lady stands for. I've got to learn more about her."

"She's got my vote already. She's for guns, likes to hunt and is way better looking that Hillary," said Mr. Heavyset with earrings in both his ears. Twenty years ago, that guy would have been calling a guy wearing two earrings "a goddamn faggot." Not in today's world where the rednecks what adopted the leather and earrings that sprung from the gay culture.

The girl disappeared into the cooler to stock beer. So I stuck up a conversation with earring man. I said, "So you think that Palin lady is qualified to be the Vice President of the most power country in the world? She's only been a governor for a couple of years and was a mayor before that."

"Sure she's qualified. Her qualifications cancelled out Obama's lack of qualifications," he said adding, "I'm tired of these politicians like Obama who have spent their whole live in Washington."

"He's only been a Senator since 2004," I pointed out.

"I still doing my research on him," he pointer out and added, "I still haven't figured out what Obama stands for. He says he's for "change" but I don't know what kind of change. Do you know what he stand for?"

I replied, "I think he spelled a lot of that out in his speech at the convention. Did you see that?"

"Hell no, I ain't got time to listen to that crap, but I can tell you this, I ain't voting for him."

Figuring he must be an expert on McCain, I asked, "Can you tell me what McCain stands for?"

"Well...a...not off hand," he said, adding, "I've still got to do some research on him."

There we go -- politics American style. Don't be bringing in the facts.
---
Anyway I think Palin is qualified to be the Vice President. George W. Bush had minimal government experience and he is still thought of as one of the greatest Presidents in our history. A woman told me that the other night. She also pointed out that she really doesn't play much attention to politics and rarely watches that news.

Palin's been the mayor of a small town. That may be more important than McCain spending five years in a POW camp and following that up with 30-whatever years as a US Senator. Biden pretty much only been an elected official his whole adult life. Obama at least has short-term experience in Illinois state government and has four years as a US Senator. Maybe Obama wants to become President so he doesn't have to join the prostitution ring that all US Senators -- except Herb Kohl -- have to get on their knees for to fund their elections.

Palin's even kneed some of the good ol' boys in the Alaska Republican Party in the ethical nuts. That's important experience in my book. That will no doubt bubble up the scum that hate her for exposing the truth. She has real life experience and is not afraid to try something new. She comes from salt-of-the-earth people and evidently knows how to sink jump shots at the buzzer. I would check to DNA to see if she has any Andrew Jackson in her. Apparently, Obama shares some of the same DNA with Chaney.

The lingering question I have with Palin is, when she shots the elk, does she know how to gut it out and quarter it up? Once that is done, does she have to carry her fair share back to camp?

Hey, but what do I know about these things. I voted for Ron Paul in 1988. Meanwhile, there will be a great deal of bullshit expended on telling us why Palin is the wrong choice. Most of that crap will becoming from the gadflies living on the East and West Coast. Those would be the sushi bar lovers who would get nervous finding themselves stranded at a Friday night fish fry with no Starbucks in sight.

Off Limits?

In 2000, John McCain took the New Hampshire primary and was favored to win in South Carolina. Had he succeeded, he would likely have thwarted the presidential aspirations of George W. Bush and become the Republican nominee. But Bush strategist Karl Rove came to the rescue with a vicious smear tactic.

Rove invented a uniquely injurious fiction for his operatives to circulate via a phony poll. Voters were asked, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain...if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" This was no random slur. McCain was at the time campaigning with his dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh.

It worked. Owing largely to the Rove-orchestrated whispering campaign, Bush prevailed in South Carolina and secured the Republican nomination. The rest is history--specifically the tragic and blighted history of our young century. It worked in another way as well. Too shaken to defend himself, McCain emerged from the bruising episode less maverick reformer and more Manchurian candidate...

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) -- Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, is pregnant and will keep the baby and marry the baby's father, the Republican vice presidential candidate said Monday. Bristol Palin, a senior in high school, is about five months along, in her second trimester...

Reacting to the news, Sen. Barack Obama said firmly that families are off-limits in the campaign for president.

"Let me be as clear as possible, I think people's families are off-limits, and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president."

Barrak Obama

...at least the family is off limits to the Democrats. How about the Republicans?

Quiet Please

"...We cry out at as the famous for nothing live their train wreck lives or the ballplayer runs for daylight or the TV news tells us about this week's missing coed, but we fail to hear the quiet, painful sound of Tyronieshia trying to read.

Then a mammoth storm swallows an American city whole. And some of us cry out that liberals should not send help to a red state, or that God allowed the storm because New Orleans is too tolerant of homosexuals, or that this tragedy proves certain people are lazy and welfare-dependent. But we fail to hear Erica, who is 10, weeping because she saw babies die in the convention center's heat and stench.

We forget that children are in the room sometimes. We push our agendas and assign our blame and impose our narratives and forget that they are right there, taking it in. Yet, if some of them were failed by schools, community and family, all were failed by the Army Corps of Engineers, the mayor, the governor, the emergency management director and the president. And don't think they don't know.

Maybe you take that as the cue to circle your wagons of race or politics. Well, Erica, who saw babies die, sees an imperative beyond that. She drew a picture, a mosaic of faces in rainbow colors, combining into a single image. A single destiny. With a little one's gift for clarifying and purifying that which stymies and stupefies adults, she calls her drawing All In One.

And the prophet was right. A little child shall lead them."

Leonard J. Pitts
Read more...