Thank you to Obama’s website for sending me this video. Its Oprah’s stumping for Obama this past weekend. 29 Thousand showed up to see what Oprah and Obama had to say..and Buddha knows it had to be cold. Its only three and a half minutes long. Obama is one helluva orator, I will give him that. I am still on the fence about him however. Kucinich is still my man.
In the aftermath of a week of bully pulpit ballyhoo from the GOP presidential candidates, I decided to address my disdain in the only manner which would allow me to stomach the subject…sarcasm.
Having watched Mitt Romney tell us the meaning of faith in America and listened to Mike Huckabee toss tactical banana peels at the Bostonian’s (former Massachusetts liberal) forever flip-flopping feet, I found myself wondering which candidate would soon be sporting a wooden cross on his shoulder for the duration of the campaign.
Fortunately, there may well be a silver lining hidden in these holier than thou high jinks. By the time the GOP is done vetting it’s candidates, the average fair minded American may find them to be far too extreme and far too beholding to their religious right-ocrites. We’ve all heard the expression “if you live by the sword, you die by the sword”…well…2008 may provide a worthy successor, “if you live by the lord, you die by the lord”…especially when you spend all of your time fighting about which lord to worship.
Moving on, the following is my offering to assist voters in determining how to qualify for entry into the GOP’s evangelical enclave. Feel free to offer additional requirements and restrictions. I would hate to be accused of an act of omission…I’ve heard the punishment is ghastly…if you’re not George Bush or an acceptable affiliate.
The Top Ten Ways To Identify An Evangelical Republican:
Number Ten:
They’re opposed to sectarian conflict in Iraq but in favor of sectarian politics in the United States.
Number Nine:
They’re opposed to homosexuality and same-sex relationships but they’ll vote for a presidential candidate who does drag and lived with two gay men if he can beat Hillary Clinton and her “typically” unfaithful heterosexual husband.
Number Eight:
They wouldn’t dare vote for a Clinton given Bill’s disgraceful sexual antics in the White House but they’re happy to support a candidate who used New York City funds to carry on an adulterous affair.
Number Seven:
They criticize Democratic candidates for suggesting they would only nominate pro-choice judges to uphold the law of the land while they require their own candidates to pass religious litmus tests in conflict with the law of the land.
Number Six:
They’re in favor of abstinence only sex education even if it leads to more unwed teen pregnancies and more parent sponsored abortions (call it the evangelical version of NIMBY - not in my back yard; NIMBU - not in my babygirls uterus).
Number Five:
They’re in favor of the separation of church and state if it involves opposing a congressional inquiry into the fundraising and spending habits of leading televangelists but opposed to the separation when it comes to selecting a presidential nominee.
Number Four:
They support candidates who endorse more funding for AIDS in Africa while embracing a candidate who favored quarantining AIDS patients in America as well as having Hollywood fund AIDS research instead of the government.
Number Three:
They tout Ronald Reagan as their political icon despite the fact that he was unable to acknowledge the toll of HIV on gays in America or even utter the word AIDS…while they and their church’s now run around talking about saving Africa from the ravages of HIV…as long as it doesn’t involve condoms.
Number Two:
They talk about their Christian values while they favor denying health care treatment to the children of illegal immigrants. Family values apparently stop at the waters edge (that would be the Rio Grande river).
Number One:
They’ll never make enough money to truly benefit from George Bush’s tax cuts for the rich or condemn his doubling of the national debt but they’re happy to call the Democratic candidates who supported an increase in minimum wage and favor a national health care system unacceptable tax and spend liberals.
Bonus Qualifier:
They abhor the fact that Jesus was tortured, mocked, and condemned to death without due process but they’re damn sure in favor of waterboarding and disregarding the principle of habeas corpus while indefinitely imprisoning war on terror detainees.
The following video clips provide Mike Huckabee’s assertion that his surge is God’s work (therefore proving Mitt Romney is a “Christian” imposter) and some candid discussion of Romney’s faith speech (a speech that pales in comparison to the JFK speech).
Huckabee: Higher Power Responsible For His Surge
CNN Discussion On Romney’s “Faith” Speech & The GOP Religious Test
Olbermann & Robinson On The Flawed Romney “Faith” Speech
On Saturday December 1st, 3600 individuals braved the nasty weather in Des Moines IA to attend a forum. This forum was special in the fact that the everyday people would be able to ask five of the Democratic Presidential candidates questions that mattered to them. The Democrats who showed up were: John Edwards, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton and my pick for President, Representative Dennis Kucinich. Only Hillary phoned it in, unable for some reason to attend in person.
The Heartland Presidential Forum has received scant notice, hell NO notice by the MSM…which shouldn’t surprise us, but it should piss us off. This Forum was unique in that the questions weren’t filtered through a cadre of network heads like CNN, MSNBC or Fox Noise. Real Americans asked their real questions and voiced their real concerns to the candidates. The Forum was sponsored by community groups across the nation. It should be noted that the Republican candidates were also invited, but only one of them accepted the invitation. The forum lawyers ruled that to only allow one Republican to attend might appear to be an illegal political endorsement and therefore he was not allowed to attend.
This wonderful forum allowed everyday Americans to address the candidates of their choice directly on the stage, face to face. The entire video of the event can be seen at MovementVisionLab.org or portions can be watched on their YouTube channel. The one MSM writeup I could find was the San Francisco Chronicle. Below are some of the individuals and their stories they highlighted from the event:
Erica Fernandez, a 17-year-old student from Ventura County, spoke eloquently of her community’s struggle against the siting of a liquefied natural gas facility - and asked John Edwards to address questions of environmental justice (the first time I’ve heard the issue raised at the presidential level).
Patricia Divine Wilder, a small business owner from Walla Walla, Wash., spoke to Hillary Clinton, choking back her own tears (and ours) as she struggled through a story of a nephew whose recurrent neck pains went unaddressed because he lacked health insurance. When he finally broke down and saw a doctor, it turned out to be inoperable lung cancer. Clinton responded at length about the arcane details of her health care plan - and was then cut off for exceeding time limits so that she could hear from an undocumented immigrant student. Identified by first name only, she noted that she had graduated at the top of her high school class, is two years away from finishing a B.A. in education, and will never be able to teach. Following her, Larry Ginter, a white family farmer from Iowa, pleaded that “to save our national soul, we have to stop treating immigrants like common criminals.” Echoing the theme, Tam Tran from Los Angeles told Dennis Kucinich her tale: she and her family fled from Vietnam, were rescued by a German boat, and came to the United States when she was 6. Now the United States wants to deport her - to Germany - and agents have followed up by raiding her parents’ mobile home two months ago.
And Barack Obama found himself floored by Dedra Lewis from Springfield, Mass. She recounted her shock when her 10-year-old daughter, Alexsiana, developed a sight-threatening eye condition - and her relief when the State Children’s Health Insurance (SCHIP) program threatened by President Bush’s veto pen had saved her when she lost her job and her private insurance. Alexsiana was there - she and Obama exchanged hugs and quiet words before he went on to outline his health care plan.
There are many more stories like these on the pages of the SFChron writeup as well as the writeup by the MovementVisionLab author Sally Kohn who calls these folks this years swing voters in her article. There were white folks, brown folks and black folks that brought their issues to the Presidential candidates. Many of the stories rang true for me or people I know and love. I would like to suggest you watch the entire presentation, but if you don’t at least watch some of the YouTube video’s of the speakers and the candidates response, it will make you proud to be an American again..at least it did me.
We need more of these types of events for the candidates, where the questions are asked by those who will be voting for our next President. Nothing was canned or phony to me, it was genuine concern based in living a life in these here United States. The American’s were from all walks of life, investors, farmers, undocumented immigrants who have worked hard to make a life here and still fear being deported. Single mothers who worry about making ends meet and feeding their children every day. I could go on and on..but hopefully you get my point dear reader. So watch our Americans in action and how the candidates responded to them.
Do yourself that favor today ok?
Crossposted at Leftwing Nutjob
To paraphrase Dave Barry, I’m not making this shit up. From the Politico:
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My colleague David Paul Kuhn attended an on-the-record dinner with Mike Huckabee and a group of reporters tonight in Des Moines.The transcript speaks for itself:
Kuhn: I don’t know to what extent you have been briefed or been able to take a look at the NIE report that came out yesterday …
Huckabee: I’m sorry?
Me: Good Lord. I’m an office worker in a podunk town in Florida, and I know what the NIE is.
Kuhn: The NIE report, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. Have you been briefed or been able to take a look at it?
Huckabee: No.
Me: No? The hell? You’re not running for Mayor of Happytown here, pal. Leader of the free world means you have to, you know, actually KNOW something about the world.
Kuhn: Have you heard of the finding?
Huckabee: No.
Me: Holy shit. He doesn’t even know what the NIE IS! This is the Republican rising star? Going through the motions internationally, blowing shit up and killing innocent civilians, that’s all OK, but if we can’t force our women to breed to shore up our limp dick self images, America is going to hell? What happened to the Republican Party on the way to the forum?
Kuhn then summarized the NIE finding that Iran had stopped work on a clandestine nuclear program four years ago and asked if it “adjusts your view on Iran in any sense.”
Kuhn: What is your concern on Iran as of now?
Huckabee: I’ve a serious concern if they were to be able to weaponize nuclear material, and I think we all should, mainly because the statements of Ahmadinejad are certainly not conducive to a peaceful purpose for his having it and the fear that he would in fact weaponize it and use it. (He pauses and thinks) I don’t know where the intelligence is coming from that says they have suspended the program or how credible that is versus the view that they actually are expanding it. … And I’ve heard, the last two weeks, supposed reports that they are accelerating it and it could be having a reactor in a much shorter period of time than originally been thought.
Me: You don’t know how credible the NIE is??!! Jesus. Somebody just shoot me. If this guy gets elected, he’ll get his intelligence from Rush “I’m a sex tourist and I need a fix” Limbaugh, that bastion of immoral values. Dear God, he’ll trust entertainers trying to drum up the numbers more than our committed, educated, professional analysts.
Kuhn: Does the United States face a higher burden of proof on Iran in light of Iraq, in the international community?
Huckabee: Probably so. First time I’ve been asked a question like that. But I think probably so because there is going to be a real anxiety for us to take any type of action without there being some very credible and almost irrefutable intelligence to validate our decision.
Me: Smack!! First time? This is the answer to our next step in superpower foreign policy? Perhaps we should get that credible and almost irrefutable intelligence from, say, the NIE. Ya think? Or is Rush’s mid-day show enough to push the red button?
Kuhn: And then on the flip side of that. a conservative concern might be, does the United States, might they hedge, might they be timid from taking necessary aggressive action due to the failures of intelligence on Iraq, and our failures in Iraq itself?
Huckabee: I think that’s a possibility as well. And that would be unfortunate if we actually knew we needed to take action but were fearful of doing so because of getting burned in the Iraq situation. That would be a serious challenge for us.
Me: Arrrrghh! Dude, if the credible and almost irrefutable (read NOT manufactured intel) is there, you have a nation behind you. If it’s another BIG FAT LIE, it’s not a challenge, it’s a wakeup call.
__________________________
Seriously, what is the Republican Party smoking these days? They’ve alienated the core traditional fiscal conservative, drumming many out of their party, embraced the fanatical one issue crowd, and stand in public forums denying evolution as if that somehow makes them look intelligent. Maybe it was fun listening to the radio and mocking Democrats for a decade, but jeez, you’re paying the price now. Is international scorn, oil trading in Euros, currency parity with Canada, out of control spending and debt a sound trade for two seats on the Supreme Court?
You sold your soul for a few yuks to whited sepulchers.
The computer revolution has been raging for quite a while now. My 84-year old father surfs the Internet and kids use computers to keep from becoming No Child Left Behind victims. The global economy is almost totally dependent on computers and the military acknowledges that cyberwars aren’t 1939 World’s Fair notions about the future, but already exist. Even our Commander-in-Luddite can’t strip our Constitutional protections without using sophisticated computer systems.
Although most First World populations are at least noddingly familiar with computers, there remains one segment that is woefully under-prepared for navigating the revolution - the commercial and governmental leaders that regulate them. Most CEOs depend on staff to print anything electronic before they’ll read it. Many of them don’t have computers on their rain forest-depleting mahogany desks, relying instead on a nearly extinct office task - dictation. Ted Stevens - the senior Republican on the committee responsible for cyber-legislation - could only muster the goofiest of descriptions of the Internet as a series tubes and trucks. I’m not sure whether to laugh at his Chutes and Ladders notion or be shocked at how little a 21st century man knows about the infrastructure he legislates.
The Washington Post reports on a John McCain debate response in which he says he’d, “rely on a vice president” for help on less important issues such as “information technology, which is the future of this nation’s economy.”
Less important? Rely on his vice president? McCain acknowledges in one breath that IT is uber-important, but in the next says - in the unlikely event he becomes President - that he’d rely on someone like say…Duncan Hunter to sort it out for him. We’ve already seen what happens when a goof ball CEO president abandons major policy management to his vice president. The sight - as they say - ain’t pretty.
The computer revolution has mowed down entire career fields. When was the last time you dealt with a human bank teller instead of paying usurious fees to wrangle an ATM? We’ve moved from a world-leading role in computer technology to a nation overly dependent on Third World countries to invent and operate our vital infrastructure. That’s due, in large part, to a ruling class as oblivious to the importance and necessity of computers as their robber baron forerunners were of child labor or wage-slave conditions.
Instead of arguing about the electibility of a Mormon or whether pantsuits make Hillary a “bitch“, we need some assurance that the leader of a free world run by computers can at least get his or her email without the help of a 10-member staff. It’s high time that candidates start talking about their pitiful knowledge of the real world and lay out exactly how they would get the US back to a world leading cyber role. If they don’t, we’ll go the route of the dodo, Ted Stevens, and bank tellers.
Now, if only we could get those electronic voting machines to work.