I Have Issues (A Political Blog)

Last post

2008-08-05T22:55:00.004-04:00

Thanks for reading these last 6 months.

And thanks to all who e-mailed or commented.

Whether you agreed or disagreed, I enjoyed talking to you.

James Garner should sue John McCain

2008-08-05T17:19:00.003-04:00

for this ad.

Following McCain's negative barrage last week, Obama hit back with an ad tying McCain to Bush and his policies.

Whether it successfully counters the GOP blitz is uncertain, but Obama does have McCain on defense, at least for now.

Nick Rahall relaunches Web site

2008-08-05T01:34:00.001-04:00

News on your Congressman from a press release:

“I am excited to announce the launch of my new web site,” said Rahall. “I encourage everyone to go to www.rahall.house.gov and discover the new and upgraded features we’ve included to make many of my office’s services available to Third District residents from the comfort of their own homes.”

Obama kicks off week focusing on energy

2008-08-05T00:40:00.005-04:00

By unveiling his plan.

UPI lists some of his proposals:

-- Providing short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump

-- Helping create 5 million new jobs by investing $150 billion in the private sector during the next 10 years to build a clean energy future.

-- Putting 1 million plug-in hybrid cars in the road by 2015.

-- Ensuring 10 percent of the nation's electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, increasing to 25 percent by 2025.

Photo: AP

Is coal the new oil?

2008-08-05T00:33:00.003-04:00

WVa Blue and Daily Kos regular Faithfull looks at the recent spike in coal prices and asks, "Are we on the verge of seeing electricity rates pull a "gas-prices?"

A great, informative post on DailyKos that you can read here.

Going down that low road

2008-08-04T23:06:00.015-04:00

So the GOP tried the "Obama thinks he's God" ad with Moses.

And they tried the "Obama is Britney" approach.

And the easily discredited "Obama won't see wounded troops" ad.

Now it's time for the "Obama wants to kill newborn babies" campaign.

Sadly, that's not a joke.

Or even a bit of Jonathan Swift-style cleverness.

They really want voters to think Barack Obama is in favor of allowing parents to kill their kids after they're born.

From FOX News' "Hannity's America"

CORSI: Exactly, even extensively looking back at his record when he was in the state legislature in Illinois. His completely pro-abortion position, his --

HANNITY: Even if a child was born.

CORSI: Even if a child was born, he said the woman still had the right to kill the child in an abortion.

HANNITY: Unbelievable.

Q: How you can tell when you shouldn't believe something on Hannity's show?

A: Whenever he does his canned, going-to-get-the-vapors bit and says something is "unbelievable."

Media Matters gives you the the real story:

In making the false assertion about Obama's position -- Obama has of course never supported giving people the right to kill their children -- Corsi was also misrepresenting the legislation to which he was referring, a bill amending the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975. Opponents of the bill said the legislation was unnecessary as the Illinois criminal code unequivocally prohibits killing children, and said that it posed a threat to abortion rights.

So who is this Mr. Corsi?

Jerome Corsi is a longtime GOP operative, brought up under the dirty tricks of Charles Colson from the Nixon era. He's the guy who wrote the anti-Kerry smear book "Unfit for Command," in 2004, which was loaded with factual errors. He's got a new one out, called "The Obama Nation," which seeks to do the same to this year's Democratic candidate. No surprise that's it's also loaded with falsehoods.

In addition he's a member of controversial conservative Web site Free Republic, where he posts under the name "jrlc." As Media Matters reports, his posts there are filled with racist and sexist rants.

So, obviously, he's another one of Hannity's many friends of character.

McCain promised us a "respectful" campaign about the issues. Will he address this segment and Hannity's tactics when he inevitably shows up on the show to again court the rightwing vote?

Don't hold your breath.

How about frequent Hannity guest and McSurrogate Joe Lieberman?

He did, after all, hint that he was going to address the Republican National Convention for McCain and denounce "partisan mudslinging." Surely, this qualifies as such in Joe's eyes.

And, if any Democratic voters think this kind of strategy is so over-the-top that voters won't take it seriously, they should look at the latest polls.

Obama's lead in the Gallup survey has all-but-evaporated and McCain is now leading by one point in Rasmussen's latest.

All thanks to McCain's kitchen sink campaign of the last week.

Sandy Goodman, a retired producer for NBC News, writes about the negative turn in the campaign at HuffPo:

Obama has his work cut out for him. He must find a way to combat McCain's so far successful campaign of character assassination or risk losing the election. This is a year the Democrats should win everything, after eight years of the disasters Republicans have foisted on this country and the world.

[...]

In politics as elsewhere in life, truth, justice and virtue too often don't triumph. Neither will Obama if he doesn't figure out how to combat McCain's gutter campaign.

Voters say they oppose negative campaigns, but the reason politicians keep running them is because, quite simply, they work.

Portrait of Hannity by me

Quickies

2008-08-03T23:53:00.009-04:00

- Gloria Steinem, one of Hillary Clinton's biggest supporters gets on record supporting the Democratic candidate:

Steinem is supporting Obama in the general race. “Women are more than smart enough to see that McCain’s policies are a disaster ... He is anti every reproductive issue we’ve ever fought for.”

She believes women will vote for Obama even if Clinton doesn’t get the much-mooted consolation prize of the vice-president’s spot on the Democratic ticket – a job Steinem doesn’t think is good enough for her anyway. Why? “It’s not an independent position, to put it mildly. I would rather see her as the president of the Senate.”

- John McCain is vetting Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor as a possible V-P.

- At WVaBlue: Anne Barth goes mud bogging.

Did McCain play the race card? Gergen thinks so

2008-08-03T22:38:00.004-04:00

Political veteran David Gergen, who served in the White House with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, says McCain's new attack ad uses racial codewords.

"I think the McCain campaign has been scrupulous about not directly saying it, but it's the subtext of this campaign. Everybody knows that. There are certain kinds of signals. As a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a southern background. We all understand that. When McCain comes out and starts talking about affirmative action, 'I'm against quotas,' we get what that's about."

Sunday morning poll (a few hours early)

2008-08-02T23:07:00.004-04:00

"Tiananmen Square," "Tibet"

2008-08-01T23:39:00.004-04:00

Those are the keywords.

Sadly, if, by improbable chance, a reporter covering the Olympics in China tries to access this post, it would be blocked by filters.

AP:

BEIJING - Olympic organizers unblocked some Internet sites at the main press center and media venues Friday while others remained off limits for journalists covering the Beijing games.

The move falls short of the "free and unfettered access" the organizers and Chinese officials had promised for months. However, it was an improvement from earlier in the week when sites for the likes of Amnesty International or Tiananmen Square could not be opened.

Here's some more of that scary, scary stuff:

Amnesty International

Also:

Today, The U.S. House of Representatives called upon President Bush to make a statement on the Chinese human rights atrocities and to request a visit to Chinese-occupied Tibet when he goes to the opening ceremonies to cozy up to the totalitarian rulers.

Chinese paramilitary police officers wait for instructions, inside the National Aquatics Center, known as the Water Cube, in Beijing Wednesday, July 30, 2008. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

In case you're feeling left out

2008-08-01T19:06:00.004-04:00

Nothing to do with politics-I just like running photos of an eclipse of the sun.

As usual with total eclipses, we didn't get to enjoy it in the U.S..

But hang in there for 9 more years. On Aug. 21, 2017, we'll have the first total solar eclipse visible from the continental U.S. since 1979.

We'll see it nicely from here, but the location and time of "greatest eclipse" will be in our region - on the western edge of Christian County, Kentucky - which is only 4-5 hours away from Huntington.

Start planning your road trips now.

The total solar eclipse is observed at 7:21 pm (1121 GMT) on Friday, Aug. 1, 2008 in north of Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province. The total solar eclipse, the first that can be viewed in China in the new century, occured on Friday. (AP)

Double standards: The "Arrogant and Cocky" edition

2008-08-01T00:44:00.011-04:00

Following some cropped quotes and bad reporting by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post and a blatantly dishonest ad from Sen. John McCain, the punditocracy has been endlessly echoing the charge that Obama is presumptuous and getting too full of himself.

This is the same beltway media that had no problem with ego and couldn't stop fawning over George W. Bush's most over-the-top moment — the carrier landing stunt five years ago.

Never mind that a large segment of the country found it tasteless:

MSNBC's Chris Matthews:

And that's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star

Ann Coulter (to Matthews):

It's tremendous. It's hard to imagine any Democrat being able to do that. And it doesn't matter if Democrats try to ridicule it. It's stunning, and it speaks for itself.

NBC's Brian Williams:

He's a youthful guy. He looked terrific and full of energy in a flight suit.

The New York Times, sounding like a bad dime store novel:

He hopped out of the plane with a helmet tucked under his arm and walked across the flight deck with a swagger that seemed to suggest he had seen Top Gun. Clearly in his element, he was swarmed by cheering members of the Lincoln's crew.

CBS' Bob Schieffer:

As far as I'm concerned, that was one of the great pictures of all time.

Margaret Carlson:

It was so well done, and even though we knew that everything was choreographed down to, you know, catching that fourth hook on the ship, it was still a pretty stirring tableau. Cecil B. DeMille couldn't have been done better. And even though you know there's no Santa Claus, Christmas is still great, as it was with that particular moment.

I don't think I need to mention that the charges against Obama are baseless and just the latest in the attempt by the GOP to turn the race away from issues and to personality-based voting.

Still, it's interesting how the talking heads are suddenly big fans of the humble approach to politics.

Barr still working on W.Va.

2008-07-31T21:45:00.005-04:00

Though the state is one of the hardest for him to obtain ballot access, Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr's campaign is still collecting signatures for W.Va.

As the H-D reported on the 31:

Party spokesperson Andrew Davis said they are shooting for 22,000 signatures, although just more than 15,000 are needed to pass the initiative.

In ballot access efforts, campaigns generally try to collect a great deal more signatures than the required number, as many are thrown out when officials review them. I worked for a third party in 2000 and our goal was to get 50% more than we needed, so that we had a cushion when they got reviewed.

Off-topic Thursday

2008-07-31T00:10:00.002-04:00

Superchunk - "Watery Hands," featuring David Cross and Janeane Garofalo.

"McPathetic" or "A Respectful Run"

2008-07-30T23:19:00.008-04:00

Earlier this year, John McCain promised his campaign would be different and would engage the American people on issues.

Well, that promise of "a respectful run" + Karl Rove as an advisor = This:

Ladies and gentlemen, the single stupidest political ad of all time!

AP:

McCain's ad, titled "Celeb" and set to air in 11 battleground states, intercuts
images of Obama on his trip to Europe last week with video of twenty-something
pop stars Spears and Hilton — both better known for their childish off-screen
antics.
"He's the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?"
the voiceover asks, noting the Illinois senator's opposition to offshore oil
drilling and suggesting he would raise taxes if elected.

Basically, the argument is "Britney Spears is popular with the young 'uns. Paris Hilton is popular with the young 'uns. Barack Obama is popular with the young 'uns. Therefore, electing Obama would be like having Britney Spears as president."

Nevermind that Britney and Paris are yesterday's news as far as being taken seriously by the youth and that McCain is once again showing how out-of-touch he is with anyone under 65.

Just stop and ask yourself, "Is this really the way the world's most influential democracy should be picking its leaders?"

----

Gotta love Obama's comeback:

The spot, titled "The Low Road," witnesses the Illinois Democrat playing his
trump card: tying McCain to George W. Bush, both in politics and in
policy.
"He's practicing the politics of the past: John McCain," reads
the ad. "His attacks on Barack Obama: not true, false, baloney, the low road,
baseless. John McCain same old politics same failed policies."
A picture of
the presumptive Republican nominee shaking hands with the soon-to-be-departed
president fills the screen.

Photo: AP

Ted Stevens indicted

2008-07-29T18:22:00.005-04:00

or

"These charges are just a series of tubes!"

HuffPo reports on another pillar of GOP ethics:

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Stevens, the nation's longest-serving Republican
senator and a major figure in Alaska politics since before statehood, was
indicted Tuesday on seven felony counts of concealing more than a quarter of a
million dollars in house renovations and gifts from a powerful oil contractor
that lobbied him for government aid.

You may remember Stevens as the "Bridge to Nowhere" guy, in which he used his position as chairman of the Senate Appproporiations Comitteee to steer $223 million of taxpayer money to build a bridge to connect a tiny island with a scant population to the mainland. A second Alaskan bridge received about $230 million and was expected to eventually cost up to $1.5 billion.

That's fiscal conservatism for you!

Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma wanted to take Stevens' bridge waste and shift it use for Katrina rebuilding.

Stevens went nuts.

"I don't kid people," Stevens roared. "If the Senate decides to
discriminate
against our state . . . I will resign from this body.

But it's most likely that know Stevens from this performance of legend:

Stevens was already fighting the race of his long political life as this investigation heated up. His Democratic challenger has been running even with him or a point or two ahead, depending on the poll. Obviously, this makes him far more vulnerable. Kos looks at whether the GOP can replace him on the ballot before the election here.

Photo: AP

McNasty claim is false (no surprise)

2008-07-29T00:32:00.009-04:00

The nonpartisan Factcheck.org takes a look at McCain's latest commercial, which claims Obama neglected wounded troops while in Germany.

The group finds the spot "falsely insinuates that Obama canceled his visit because "the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras."

Citizen Kaine

2008-07-28T23:25:00.007-04:00

I know, not clever and too lazy of a headline, but I couldn't resist referencing my favorite movie.

Politico reports that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is "very, very high" on the short list for Obama's V-P.

As Senator Barack Obama turns to the choice of his running mate, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine has emerged as one of the campaign’s potential finalists, sources familiar with conversations in Richmond and in Chicago said.

Make of that what you will.

One obvious electoral benefit is that he's enormously popular in Virginia, a swing state.

Health care and education are his big issues. He tends to be a bit more culturally conservative than most Dems.

But bear in mind that Obama's campaign said to ignore all speculation and that leaks would not occur. The campaign said no information would be forthcoming until a choice is made.

So who knows?

Democratic Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine talks with reporters during a break at the National Governors' Association centennial meeting, Saturday, July, 12, 2008, in Philadelphia.

One week after...

2008-07-28T23:15:00.009-04:00

One week after Bill O'Reilly called Moveon and Netroots Nation the equivalent of hate groups like the Klan and white power movements, we find this out.

---

We all were shocked by the tragic shooting at a church in Tennessee earlier this week.

Information has come out as to the killer's motive:

Knoxville News:

Police found right-wing political books, brass knuckles, empty shotgun shell boxes and a handgun in the Powell home of a man who said he attacked a church in order to kill liberals "who are ruining the country," court records show.
[...]
Adkisson targeted the church, Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."
[...]
Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.

Obviously, he was a disturbed man to begin with. Probably was far gone long ago. So saying rightwing radio caused this would be a real stretch.

Though a steady diet of such angry, divisive rhetoric certainly doesn't help.

But I think Bill can quit pointing fingers as to who's spreading hate now. That line about the war on terror and the media sounds a bit O'Reilly-esque.

Also, O'Reilly and his kind are often the first to blame film and music for violence in society. If they really believe that, will they push just as hard to police their own content?

McNasty

2008-07-28T00:16:00.009-04:00

Now we're seeing why he was given that nickname in high school.

This last few week, he's getting increasingly desperate - from thinly-veiled attacks on Obama's patriotism to nonsensical accusations of neglecting the troops (nevermind the fact that McMaverick was the one who opposed the recent GI Bill).

Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska has had enough.

"John is treading on some very thin ground here when he impugns motives and when we start to get into, 'You're less patriotic than me. I'm more patriotic ... "it's just not responsible to be saying things like that."

Hagel used to be considered one of McCain's strongest allies. He backed McCain in his 2000 run and was, at one point, someone many thought would be on a McCain short list for V-P.

But in the last year, he's spoken out more and more against the war in Iraq and McCain and Bush's positions. Hagel's wife's has donated to Obama and he's even said he'd consider a V-P position on an Obama ticket, if offered. Probably won't happen - but he's made it known to the Obama campaign.

By the way, isn't it a strange coincidence that this sudden, ugly turn in McCain seems to happen around the same time Karl Rove took a more active role in his campaign?

Expect lots more of this kind of MaverickyStraightTalkTM as we enter the final 100 days of the race.

Photo AP

Sunday poll

2008-07-27T00:56:00.004-04:00

This one's a rerun (the only time I'll do this) from when the blog wasn't featured on the front page of the site and it didn't get a lot of traffic.

Since I'm on the front through convention time, I thought this would be a good time to reuse it. Here's the original setup:

This week's poll is a look at the people who didn't get to be president. For this list, I've assembled a mix - some I think would have been wonderful, some I believe would have been absolutely horrid and possibly brought about the end of the U.S.A.

I've included as many eras and political stripes as I could, though I admit it's skewed a bit toward modern times.

The only qualification was that the person actually had presidential aspirations - some lost narrowly in the general, others lost in the primary, some never had a prayer in any case and some died before they could be nominated.

Have at it:

Third party watch

2008-07-26T23:33:00.009-04:00

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr was on Ed Schultz's radio program a few days ago. He said he is likely going to appear on the ballot in 49 out of 50 states.

He didn't mention the one he's having trouble with is the Mountain State.

His deputy campaign manager Shane Cory talked to West Virginia Public Radio about their efforts:

He said West Virginia is one of the toughest states for the third party candidate to get on the ballot. To qualify, Barr must get signatures from 2% of voters from the 2004 election. That’s more than 15,000 signatures.

“For us, it was a matter of resources,” he said. “We had not planned to make an effort in West Virginia. It was only in the last two weeks when we said, we can send in the manpower and we can make a valid attempt to get on the ballot in West Virginia.”

Independent candidate Ralph Nader's campaign turned in their signatures this week.

Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party will get the Mountain Party ballot line (as the Mountain Party's Jesse Johnson bombed in his own bid for the Green nomination).

Photo: Bob Barr, Libertarian Party presidential nominee, gestures as he answers a question during a news conference in Oklahoma City, Tuesday, July 15, 2008. AP

Fox follies continue

2008-07-26T23:05:00.006-04:00

620, 127 signatures were delivered to the pretend news network, calling it out for it's use of racial stereotypes.

Rolling Stone:

The rapper stood next to 19 neatly stacked cardboard boxes, with the number 620,127 taped to the side of each one — over 600,000 signatures gathered by ColorOfChange demanding that network president Roger Ailes “find a solution to address racial stereotyping and hate-mongering before it hits the airwaves.” Fox rejected the petitions, but Brave New Films says that Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report will accept them instead.

Meanwhile, Bill O'Reilly's constant projection is turning him into a complete cartoon.

He compares Netroots Nation to the Nazi party and David Duke. And he thinks Moveon is the new Klan.

The fact that both groups are openly critical of BillO and have documented numerous inaccuracies by him has nothing to do with this, of course.

This is just the usual thing where BillO accuses everyone else of behavior that he's guilty of.

He's no stranger to hate, having made numerous racist slurs over the years.

Lots of them.

Lots and lots.

And if you really want to see BillO's double standards in action, take a look at the guy who immediately follows him on TV. Mr. No Spin is strangely silent on this one.

Photo by me.

Which candidate do you feel the media favors?
	Barack Obama
	John McCain
	neither

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Who is the greatest president we never had?
	Alexander Hamilton
	Samuel Adams
	Henry Clay
	Horace Greeley
	Samuel Tilden
	William Jennings Bryan
	Eugene Debs
	Robert La Follette
	Huey P. Long
	Alf Landon
	Tom Dewey
	Henry Wallace
	Strom Thurmond
	Adlai Stevenson
	Barry Goldwater
	Robert F. Kennedy
	Eugene McCarthy
	Hubert Humphrey
	George Wallace
	George McGovern
	Walter Mondale
	Gary Hart
	Michael Dukakis
	H. Ross Perot
	Bob Dole
	Steve Forbes
	Al Gore
	Ralph Nader
	Pat Buchanan
	John Kerry

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