In search of the well-informed voter

Guess what, folks—it’s already begun. The swift boaters are at it again.  In my travels around town recently, I’ve come across several people who said they’d never vote for Obama in the fall because he won’t salute the flag, [or that] he turned his back on it at an event, he refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance and—by the way—he’s a Muslim.

Come on, folks. Don’t let the Republican Party fool you again. Isn’t it about time we showed the rest of the world we are not as dumb, racist and ignorant as they think we are? A well-informed voter is the Republican Party’s worst nightmare. Check the facts first. It took me less than half an hour to go online and disprove all of this stuff. Come on, people—would this man put his life on the line running for president if he didn’t love this country?

With the media being increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer people (yes, that includes the Fox Network), we can’t always believe everything they tell us. They know that the average American gets most of their news in sound bites, and because they read it in print or see it on TV, they take it as fact. You have to question everything you hear or read—unless, of course, you’ve been happy with the way the country has been run the last eight years.

Have you been happy with an obstructionist Republican Congress that has filibustered almost everything the Democrats have put in front of them, because they know that it takes 60 votes to override a filibuster? They also know the media doesn’t report their filibusters. The Democrats, being in the majority (by one vote), will get the blame for nothing getting done. I could go on and on about the war, torture, the incompetence of officials following Katrina and the destruction of our Constitution—but then I would need to write a book.

Economically speaking, the Republican Party doesn’t have a thing to offer folks in the middle class and below, but it is those folks who have been voting them into power the last eight years. Change won’t come under Republican rule.

Barrack Obama doesn’t take pack or lobbyist money; he won’t be beholden to them—do you think they want him in office?

— Sharon Dagiel
Weaverville

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194 thoughts on “In search of the well-informed voter

  1. William P Miller

    “William P Miller, you and travelah certainly do have a lot in common.”-entopticon

    Why thank you Mr E. I consider that a compliment. Travelah posts some well spoken and logical points of view. You, on the other hand, are defensive and quickly attack those who disagree with you. That is not necessary and detracts from your point of view. Most of my friends are liberal. Although many of them get emotional when it comes to politics, they don’t go to your extremes. It may surprise you, but I agree with liberals on some issues, primarily social issues. I just part company when it comes to the high tax/big government “solution” they advance for societies ills.

    Again, Barack Obama has baggage. Not wearing a lapel pin when campaigning for president is an issue when his patriotism is suspect. He now is wearing one. But it is obvious that he is doing it for the sake of expediency.

    A root cause of the liberal koolaid drinking lockstep on Obama is they have made their politics a religion. Political views then become dogma, and adhered to with the same tenacity of a fundamentalist Christian defending the ‘inerrant’ Word of God in the King James version of the Bible. No politician is going to make everyone’s life perfect.

    Obama has many of the same faults any other politician has. I realize all these people are human. I weigh their good points and bad points. I look closely at their policy positions. Then I make a choice on this. To me, so far the 2 candidates worth supporting are Hillary Clinton and John McCain. I will most likely vote for one or the other.

  2. travelah

    Travelah if you held the Bush administration to the same strict quilt by association and “sources said” standards you promote for Obama, you should be screaming for imeachment.

    I hold the Bush administration to the same standards as I hold any administration. The policies should be consistent with the political philosophy that got them elected in the first place. Bush is “guilty” of being consistent with the beliefs of those around him and those who have supported him for several years. He did not run for President on a centrist platform while harboring ideas significantly different than those he was philosophically in line with. He ran as a conservative and has not done a good job.

    Ken Lay and Enron, Jack Ambramoff, Scooter, Karl and Valerie Plame, Karl and the fired US district attorneys, cocaine and dodging military service, torture, just a quick short list. Now Scott McClelland said they fudged the truth to go to war. That alone is an impeachable offense. He was a pretty dern close associate.

    I do not see impeachable offenses there. Bush was not connected to the Enron fiasco. Valarie Plame was already outed and was not an active covert agent at the time of these so called outings and Bush did not out her. I do not know where the dodging military service comes from. As for McClelland, if he was lying then, what makes you think he is telling the truth now? I see a man out to settle a score and one who lacks character based on his verey own record.

    Obama on the other hand has proven Marxist connections, ran for office as a hardcore leftist, sought the endorsement of Marxists who only endorsed leftist candidates, actively supports a radical leftist organization (ACORN) AND he is trying to pass himself off as a centrist change agent. He is lying and large segments of historic Democrat constiuencies have caught on to it hence the Democrat’s quandary in putting a radical leftist at the top of their ticket. Unfortunately, these large constituencies and coalitions have caught on too late. The difference between this year and 2004 is that John Kerry was a war hero for the communists, a stooge for their propaganda. Obama is in bed with them.

  3. entopticon

    WPM: “Travelah posts some well spoken and logical points of view”

    bwwwwwwaaaaahh-haaaaa-haaaaa-haaaa! That is rich. travelah is a bigoted windbag that spends all of his time making racist and ludicrous guilt-by-association smears and has a laughably delusional paranoid obsession with communists lurking around every corner.

    WPM: “Not wearing a lapel pin when campaigning for president is an issue when his patriotism is suspect.”

    Actually, his patriotism is not suspect in the least, except among bigoted windbags. The very concept that his patriotism is suspect is ludicrously racist nonsense. He has served this country admirably for his entire adult life. Being related to a Muslim only makes his patriotism suspect to ridiculously bigoted lunatics.

    WPM: “A root cause of the liberal koolaid drinking lockstep on Obama is they have made their politics a religion.”

    Your hypocrisy is astonishingly laughable. You have been this offensive from the beginning, then you whine about me fighting fire with fire. What a hypocritical joke you are.

    WPM: “To me, so far the 2 candidates worth supporting are Hillary Clinton and John McCain.”

    Yeah, that’s rational. Not. Even Hillary says that she and obama are “VASTLY” closer on the issues than she and McCain are. The main thing that Hillary and McCain have in common is that they are both white.

    There is no conceivably rational argument for saying that your choice is between Hillary and McCain, but of course, you have made it abundantly clear that logic and reason don’t count for much in your world.

  4. entopticon

    travelah said: “The difference between this year and 2004 is that John Kerry was a war hero for the communists, a stooge for their propaganda. Obama is in bed with them.”

    Ahhhh, welcome to the world of travelah, where John Kerry is a communist war hero because although he was an American war hero who risked his life to fight the communists, he opposed the war, so that makes him a commie.

    Of course, it isn’t surprising that travelah has been fantasizing about Obama in bed with communists. Naughty travelah.

  5. travelah

    The facts already came out on Kerry four years ago and the Amereican public rejected him. Now, instead of a stooge for the communists, we have a candidate with Barck Hussein Obama who actively sought the endorsement of a Marxist group and received it during his 1996 Illinois state senate run. That group, called The Party formed in 1992, only endorsed Marxist leftists and supported four candidates one of whom was Obama.

  6. entopticon

    travelah… you uncovered the big secret…. it gets even worse…

    Obama received endorsements from Jewish organizations, so clearly, he is really a Jew! He received numerous endorsements from women’s organizations, and that makes him a woman!

    So what if communist hysteria has been considered a joke since McCarthyism? travelah is far too much of a real man to let a little nuisance like being a ludicrous joke with no cogent arguments get in the way of his tireless path of delusional ridiculousness.

    Gay, black Marxists are hiding in your cupboard travelah. Ooooooh scary—scary!!!

  7. entopticon

    In the news:

    Renowned war hero, retired Air Force General Tony McPeak bashed John McCain’s record on national security and applauded Barack Obama for his. Link to the article:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/02/retired-air-force-general_n_104653.html

    A new Gallup poll states that Americans overwhelmingly agree with Barack Obama’s position that, as president, he should consider meeting with foreign leaders both friend and foe. Link to the article:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/02/americans-favor-president_n_104670.html

  8. travelah

    Liberal Jewish organizations do not endorse candidates because they are Jewish. Marxist organizations DO endorse candidates because they are Marxist or leftist.

  9. entopticon

    bobaloo.. I definitely agree with you. It has been nearly impossible for him to make headway in the general election, but that should dramatically change this week.

    As noted above, enormously important figures like General McPeak are coming out to say that Barack Obama is far superior to John McCain on issues of national security, which is good.

    Once the battle turns to John McCain, people will get a chance to see how impressive Obama’s positions on those issues are, and how weak McCain’s are.

    The nation is overwhelmingly for getting out of Iraq promptly, and that is going to prove to be a nightmare issue for McCain.

    On the economy, as noted above, huge endorsements having been rolling in for Obama, including Paul Volcker and several other former Fed Chairmen.

    Personally, I am looking forward to the commercial playing the infamous footage of McCain patronizingly explaining that the Sunni and Shiite in Iraq may have tensions, but they would never resort to major violence against one another. Whups, he was only off by a few hundred thousand lives or so.

    A commercial of the infamous footage of him saying that the Iraq war would be quick and inexpensive will be a good laugh as well.

    Currently, the one of him lying up a storm, called John McCain’s You Tube Problem Just Became a Nightmare is one of the most viewed videos on You Tube:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c

    Another good one is John McCain vs John Mcain:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI

    It’s just been announced that Hillary is likely to give a concession speech tomorrow night, which should be a major step in looking towards the general election.

  10. entopticon

    travelah, where do you get your material? Is there some kind of right-wing extremist comedy club circuit? You would knock ’em dead.

    The gay black Marxists are coming for you travelah! They are going to strap you to a chair in a tutu and make you watch Keith Olberman while the naked ghost of Saddam Hussein reads you the Koran while nibbling on your ear… and it’s all Obama’s fault!

  11. steve

    “Can you, travelah and the other fringe players make a cogent, fact-based case as to why the GOP candidate should be supported, or is a smear campaign all that can be expected? Never mind, we know the answer.”

    Di: I gave up reading all the posts after your chalenge, but I’m pretty sure they completely ignored it and just called Obama a leftist, socialist, black nationalist who will eat your christianity.

    Whodathunk?

  12. travelah

    bobaloo,
    Victor Davis Hanson has a well written piece on Pajamas Media today that goes to the heart of both Obama’s and McCain’s issues in this election.

    Both Obama and McCain have pulled off the once unthinkable. The former dethroned some 16 year of Clintonian political hegemony by the sheer force of personality and charisma, when initially all the hierarchy and political machinery were against him. The latter by sheer force of will, stubbornness, and a certain courage, never gave up when most had written him off, and simply out toughed his opponents.

    There is a certain irony here. In a year that for historical and contemporary reasons should be a Democratic shoo-in, the Democrats have nominated about the only candidate who can lose in November, the Republicans the only one of their own who can still win it.

    http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/autopsy-of-the-primaries-the-only-democratic-candidate-who-can-lose-the-general-election-the-only-republican-one-who-can-win-it/

  13. entopticon

    Sorry travelah, but there is no such thing as “a well written piece on Pajamas Media.”

    Pajamas Media is a right-wing extremist joke.

  14. Dionysis

    Anything to keep the focus off McBush; if it takes drivel about uppity black Marxists, miscegenation, flag pins, looney preachers or whatever, as long as it diverts from the disaster-in-waiting in the person of double-talking McBush. In addition to continuing a nearly universally opposed war (lots of contracts being negotiated between Iraq and U.S. defense firms and others; McBush won’t let that largesse go), in addition to the fiscally irresponsible tax cuts (most economists did not favor these cuts when they were made, for good reason), in addition to vowing to overturn Roe v. Wade (and the horrific spectacle of McBush intalling more cretins like Scalia to the Court), McBush pal and key economic advisor Phil Gramm will destroy what’s left of the middle-class:

    “Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s national campaign general co-chair was being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis at the same time he was advising McCain about his economic policy, federal records show…

    After Gramm passed a law easing regulation of energy-commodity trading, California experienced a sharp run-up in energy costs…

    In 1999, Gramm successfully undid the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, removing the decades-old wall between commercial banking, which was heavily regulated, and investment banking, which was not. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act did not extend significant new regulation to investment banking.

    Some economists fault Gramm’s deregulatory successes, as well as lax enforcement of remaining oversight powers, not just for the subprime mortgage crisis, but for its spread to other sectors of finance. Even Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has expressed interest in toughening regulations…

    Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute told the Washington Post, “McCain is counting on people having very short memories and not connecting some pretty obvious dots here.”

    News of Gramm’s involvement as a paid advocate for the banking industry, simultaneous with his unpaid work on McCain’s economic policies, comes as McCain’s campaign continues to reel from the purge of four other lobbyists.”

    http://www.truthout.org/article/mccain-economic-policy-shaped-lobbyist

    If you think the Chimperor has mucked the country up, let John McBush in the White House.

  15. travelah

    Most Americans are cast as right wing extremists by those whose political paradigm is shaped by myopic rhetoric and a near starvation diet of leftist propaganda.

  16. Dionysis

    “Most Americans are cast as right wing extremists by those whose political paradigm is shaped by myopic rhetoric and a near starvation diet of leftist propaganda.”

    This is a textbook example of how ‘travelah’ and his fellow travelers typically dodge-and-weave from unpleasant facts: first, make a sweeping statement that simply reflects opinion; next, make sure to convey this diversionary twaddle in polysyllibic wording to give the impression the opinion has intellectual heft; finally, make sure the proper, emotion-laden buzzwords are included (“leftist propaganda”).

    The problem he and other fringe players have is that they are so easily refuted (which will generate obfuscatory and diversionary non-answers…just watch).

    “As Editor & Publisher paraphrased one syndicate executive noting, “U.S. dailies run more conservative than liberal columns, but some are willing to consider liberal voices…

    …Sixty percent of the nation’s daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists…
    In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million…

    In three out of the four broad regions of the country — the West, the South, and the Midwest — conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists. Only in the Northeast do progressives reach more readers, and only by a margin of 2 percent…

    …In eight of the nine divisions into which the U.S. Census Bureau divides the country, conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists in any given week…

    According to a 2006 Pew Research Center study, 66 percent of those who say they follow political news closely regularly read newspapers, far more than the number who cite any other medium…”

    http://mediamatters.org/reports/oped/

  17. entopticon

    travelah, I have news for you. Your tireless effort to throw us back to the paranoid hysteria of McCarthyism and the bigotry of pre-civil rights America is not open-minded, it is ludicrously regressive. I’m not the myopic one.

    As far as propaganda goes, that is all you know. Time after time you have been challenged to come up with one single concrete shred of evidence for your ridiculous aspersions and you have never been able to do it. Not even once, which makes you and your laughable right-wing drivel a complete joke.

    Academia isn’t overwhelmingly populated by liberals because of propaganda travelah. It is overwhelmingly dominated by liberals because intelligent people would never take your bigoted, bizarrely anachronistic obsession with Marxists and black liberationists seriously.

    You are not even close to being at the level of understanding or education where you can be taken even vaguely seriously. That’s not hyperbole travelah, it is a just a plain fact.

    The reason ridiculous arguments like yours are heard from KKK members and Neo-Nazis on Jerry Springer, and not in any serious University (that means not Liberty or Bob Jones) except as a sociological oddity, is because your arguments don’t even come close to being legitimate.

    If you don’t think hate groups on tabloid TV and everyhwhere else make your exact same bigoted and asinine arguments, you haven’t been paying attention.

    The new KKK is every bit as as ridiculously paranoid of leftist Marxists and black liberationists taking over as you are. They are every bit as obsessed with Reverend Wright as you are. Whether or not you identify yourself with those groups, your rhetoric is identical, so you are far beyond the point of being taken seriously.

  18. entopticon

    travelah, I have news for you. Your tireless effort to throw us back to the paranoid hysteria of McCarthyism and the bigotry of pre-civil rights America is not open-minded, it is ludicrously regressive. I’m not the myopic one.

    As far as propaganda goes, that is all you know. Time after time you have been challenged to come up with one single concrete shred of evidence for your ridiculous aspersions and you have never been able to do it. Not even once, which makes you and your laughable right-wing drivel a complete joke.

    Academia isn’t overwhelmingly populated by liberals because of propaganda travelah. It is overwhelmingly dominated by liberals because intelligent people would never take your bigoted, bizarrely anachronistic obsession with Marxists and black liberationists seriously.

    You are not even close to being at the level of understanding or education where you can be taken even vaguely seriously. That’s not hyperbole travelah, it is a just a plain fact.

    The reason ridiculous arguments like yours are heard from KKK members and Neo-Nazis on Jerry Springer, and not in any serious University (that means not Liberty or Bob Jones) except as a sociological oddity, is because your arguments don’t even come close to being legitimate.

    If you don’t think hate groups on tabloid TV and everyhwhere else make your exact same bigoted and asinine arguments, you haven’t been paying attention.

    The new KKK is every bit as as ridiculously paranoid of leftist Marxists and black liberationists taking over as you are. They are every bit as obsessed with Reverend Wright as you are. Whether or not you identify yourself with those groups, your rhetoric is identical, so you are far, far beyond the point of being taken even remotely seriously.

  19. travelah

    Well informed voters should take note that leftist-liberals tend to view themselves as the only group that is overwhelmingly intelligent. That would explain why the Obammunists view all the other people in the “middle states out there” as idiots, racists and xenophobic. It is that elitist view that has driven the Democrat Party’s historic core coalitions to erfuse to supportr him in 3/4 of the primaries held since “super Tuesday”. In a year that was the Democrats for the taking, something is starting to smell in the Democrat Party.

  20. bobaloo

    Thanks trav, I’ll check it out.

    Entop, I like to read pundits from both sides. PJM is pretty much the flip of HuffPo.

  21. entopticon

    Yep, that’s true bobaloo, Pajamas Media is indeed the flipside of Huffington Post, i.e., respectable, progressive, ethical. If right-wing websites float your boat, by all means, knock yourself out.

    I like to check in on the far right from time to time, because it is important to know what they are up to, but for me, life is way too short to spend much time there. I don’t find the whole greedy racist perspective to be particularly enlightening.

  22. entopticon

    travelah, for someone who has so much animosity towards the left, it sure is ironic that you spend such a huge percentage of your time trolling around on the local liberal weekly’s website.

    Personally I find right-wing websites to be about as enjoyable as a trip to the dentist. You couldn’t pay me enough to spend all of my time lurking around lurking around the right-wing extremist (the Tribune) website.

    Do you hang around the liberal weekly’s website out of some sort of twisted masochism? When you troll around here, do you wear one of those rubber ball gags like in the torture/rape scene from Pulp Fiction?

    It’s true travelah, when you espouse right-wing hate group rhetoric about Marxists and black liberationists taking over, verbatim, as you do all day long, you sacrifice the privilege of being taken seriously.

  23. travelah

    Dionysis, the world view I have is shared by a majority of people in this country. That world view does not mean that we all vote lockstep with each other. Moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans have a great deal in common with moderate social libertarians even though we hold differing opinions on a variety of topics. What that world view also entails is the ability to engage in discussions without a constant barrage of empty vitriol and personal animus. That does not seem to be a character trait among those who oppose that great body out there in the middle states somewhere

  24. travelah

    bobaloo, that is a good assessment. It does come at the issues from the opposite perspective of Huff. It is a good thing that you examine all sides of the issues rather than hold to a biased position whether you agree with the opposing viewpoint or not.

  25. bobaloo

    I don’t find the whole greedy racist perspective to be particularly enlightening.

    Y’know, there’s actually policy and ideology behind some of their beliefs, and it doesn’t stem from greed and racism. I know of very, very few that are blatantly offensive.
    Personally, I really appreciate the analysis of Ed Morrisey and Allahpundit at HotAir.com

    Try Debbie Schlussel for offensive. That woman is a menace.

  26. travelah

    Well informed voters should check out Nic Duquette’s excellent article examining the healthy condition of our economy given soring oil prices, a weak dollar and the inability of unqualified mortgage holders to meet increased mortgate rates. Why is it that we are growing jobs at a time when all indicators suggest we should be in a near depression. What will happen to all the marginal Asheville workers trying to eke out a living working one and two jobs when the Obommunists tank the economy by saddling it with more failed leftist poilicy?

    If the Economy Is So Bad, Why Isn’t It Worse?
    The media have already declared the U.S. economy to be in recession, even if the official statistics don’t say so yet. The economy is certainly not as healthy as it was a few years ago, and may yet get much worse. But so much has gone so wrong, so quickly, that it’s not interesting to squabble over whether this is a “recession” or a “slowdown.” I wonder: why aren’t things worse?

    By most measures, the U.S. economy ought to be in trouble. The goods consumers need most, food and energy, are rising rapidly in price, at the same time record declines in the values of the dollar and real estate have reduced the value of Americans’ incomes and their largest assets. Declining wealth and the rising cost of necessities should be diverting spending from other consumption goods, while at the same time more durable purchases, like homes and large motor vehicles, are enduring a historic supply glut. The chicanery in the market for housing-related financial instruments has weakened the faith of financial firms in the market, and credit for new investments is suddenly scarce.

    http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/if-the-economy-is-so-bad-why-isnt-it-worse/

  27. Dionysis

    “the world view I have is shared by a majority of people in this country”

    I can accept that most, if not all, people you know share this “world view.” I also am aware that historically, there have been more Americans that identify themselves as ‘conservative’ than those who self-identify as ‘liberal’ (see last paragraph), but they’ve never been a majority and they surely don’t mirror your extremist views.

    “Moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans have a great deal in common with moderate social libertarians even though we hold differing opinions on a variety of topics.”

    I think this is probably correct.

    “…the ability to engage in discussions without a constant barrage of empty vitriol and personal animus.”

    A few points: if this is true, then why the “constant barrage” of stereotypical terms like “Socialist”, “Marxist”, “rabid leftist” and so on? Entopticon has challenged you to substantiate these types of slurs (as have others) but darned if I have seen any factual backup.

    As far as “personal animus” goes, criticisms are based upon what the other party says or writes, no other factor that I’ve seen. Since it’s unlikely anyone posting here personally knows other posters, it is not based upon “personal animus.”

    And lastly, to the extent that the ‘great middle’ is conservative, that seems to be changing as the next generation comes of age:

    “At a time when Democrats have made gains after years in which Republicans have dominated Washington, young Americans appear to lean slightly more to the left than the general population: 28 percent described themselves as liberal, compared with 20 percent of the nation at large. And 27 percent called themselves conservative, compared with 32 percent of the general public.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/washington/27cnd-poll.html?ex=1340510400&en=cdea07459caeed71&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

    Note that 32 percent is less than 1/3, not the “majority.” I would also bet that many, if not most, of this 32 percent don’t have a fixation with ‘Communists’, ‘Marxists’, black liberationists, nut case clergy and such that you seem so atwitter about.

  28. entopticon

    bobaloo, I know there is policy and ideology at right wing sites by people such as Ed Morrisey. That is the problem.

    The policies and ideology they espouse have brought are planet to the brink of destruction, if not already past it.

    Their policies and ideology have needlessly killed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq.

    Their policies and ideology have devastated our economy.

    Their policies and ideology have created astonishing economic disparity.

    Their policies and ideology have threatened the basic civil liberties of gay Americans.

    Their policies and ideology have threatened women’s right to decide what to do with their own bodies.

    Their policies and ideology have had a catastrophic effect on our international reputation and credibility.

    Their policies and ideology have made the world a far more dangerous place.

    Their policies and ideology have fueled the fires of racism and xenophobia.

    Ed Morrisey and Debbie Schussel are friends, and if you google it, you will find countless articles where Ed Morrissey cites her and other extremist wackos like Michelle Malkin for his own twisted arguments.

    I’m sorry, but I don’t find right-wing sites like Pajamas Media, Rush Limbaugh, or HotAir to be benign or informative; I find their twisted ideology to be a very serious threat to both the planet and humanity.

  29. Eli Cohen

    Travelah, frankly you lack the wit to discuss economic matters, please stick to character assignation and slimy innuendo…you seem to be good at that.

  30. entopticon

    Here is an alternative perspective on the Bush economy:
    http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=is_bush_to_blame_for_the_economy

    Here are a few key points from the article:

    “At the most basic level, contrary to the myth, growth has actually been very weak under President Bush. Here is the ranking of growth by presidential administrations since 1960:

    Kennedy-Johnson: 5.2%
    Clinton: 3.6%
    Reagan: 3.4%
    Carter: 3.4%
    Nixon-Ford: 2.7%
    Bush II: 2.6%
    Bush I: 1.9%

    President Bush only manages to beat out his father, and even this distinction may not hold when the final numbers are in. These data only run through the third quarter of 2007. If we fall into a recession and Bush ends his term with five quarters of near-zero growth, then Bush II could even fall behind Bush I in the growth category.”

    “By the end of the Bush presidency, we will likely have added more than $1.5 trillion (more than 10 percent of GDP) to our foreign indebtedness. This is the result of the massive trade deficits of the Bush years.”

    “Job growth has been abysmal in the Bush years, averaging less than 900,000 jobs a year, compared to more than 2.5 million jobs a year during the Clinton administration.”

    “Health-care coverage has become increasingly precarious as millions of people have lost coverage and tens of millions of workers find that they must pay much more for their health care, either in premiums, co-payments, or deductibles.”

    “President Bush’s decision to ignore the growth of the housing bubble and the madness in the mortgage market was one of the most disastrous economic mistakes in the country’s history.

    “The meltdown of the housing market has already led to record rates of foreclosures and multibillion-dollar write-downs at the country’s leading financial institutions. But this is just the beginning. The current double-digit rate of house-price decline will destroy between $2 trillion and $4 trillion in additional housing wealth over the course of the year. In short, it looks like President Bush will go out with a real bang.”

  31. William P Miller

    Well I called it right. Hillary did not concede last night. This will be fun. Will the democrat party force Hillary in as a VP even though Obama is loathe to accept her? My guess is that they will force him too. Because she did carry the swing states and she draws the very voters that Obama doesn’t: working class democrats, women, and Hispanics. The Reagan democrats, as it were. Besides, the women in this country are furious at the way Hillary has been treated in this race. Pure chauvinism from a lot of the press, democrat party leadership, and Obama himself.

    The tickets: Obama/HR Clinton democrat.
    McCain/Limbaugh republican.

    :)

  32. Dionysis

    “McCain/Limbaugh republican.”

    Bring it on. A ticket composed of the conductor of the Double Talk express, with a 95% Bush-supporting voting record, professed ignorance about economic matters, a ‘broken record’ recantation of ‘my friends, war, war, war, war, war, war…” coupled with a chickenhawk blowhard who utters such drivel as:

    “”Barack Obama is an affirmative action candidate” and asserted during his May 14 broadcast that “[i]f Barack Obama were Caucasian, they would have taken this guy out on the basis of pure ignorance long ago.”

    and

    “the growth of government being commensurate with women getting the vote, the right to vote.”

    http://mediamatters.org/items/200806020006

    With a Republicon ticket like that, Obama could select a cadaver as his running mater and win.

  33. William P Miller

    Dionysis said “With a Republicon ticket like that, Obama could select a cadaver as his running mater and win.”

    It was a joke. Rush Limbaugh is too smart to run for office, as his liberal bomb throwing counterpart Keith Olbermann. Of course, Barack Hussein Obama could run with a cadaver, be associated with Rev Wright, be friends with convicted briber and “helper” in getting his house in the rich neighborhood Hyde Park Rezko, be friends with a bomb throwing anti-America jerk named Bill Ayers, and having had an “affair” with Larry Sinclair…and he will still be the “messiah” to koolaid drinking leftists who don’t think but just agitate “for change”.

  34. Dionysis

    “be associated with Rev Wright, be friends with convicted briber and “helper” in getting his house in the rich neighborhood Hyde Park Rezko, be friends with a bomb throwing anti-America jerk named Bill Ayers, and having had an “affair” with Larry Sinclair…and he will still be the “messiah” to koolaid drinking leftists who don’t think but just agitate “for change”.

    And thus, in one rambling, guilt-by-association diatribe, we have, essentially, the entire wingnut fall general election strategy.

    That strategy worked pretty well recently in Mississippi and Louisiana, eh?

    Now lay out the case to continue four more years of Republican ‘rule’. Let me help:

    Vote Republican…we’ll give you more war, more economic misery, more attacks on the Constitution, more tax breaks for the rich, more deterioration of our crumbling infrastructure, more government intrusion into citizen’s lives, more control by lobbyists, more environmental degradation, more loss of prestige on the world stage and more sex scandals.

    Vote Republican: we still have hard work to do!

  35. William P Miller

    Dionysis, it is you who have drunk the Barack Hussein Obama koolaid. It is you who will vote for Obama simply because he is a democrat and not a republicon. Right? To me, both candidates now running are far from my first choices. But you have to vote for the lesser of the 2 evils…if you actually consider the issues and the candidates and don’t just knee-jerk.

    To me, McCain is the lesser of the evils. He actually has a lot of experience as a leader and as a public servant. Barack does not. He is an exciting speaker, very charismatic for sure. But he has very little experience on the national level, and zero experience on the executive level. Exit polls of late have suggested that democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton will be wary of stayting democrat and going for Hillary. 50% in Kentucky said that if Obama is the demcorast candidate, they will vote for McCain.

    I predict a McCain victory. Barack should wait for 8 years, get more experience, then make a try.

  36. Eli Cohen

    Yo willie P., since when does experience mean anything when it comes to the presidency? Your boy bush didn’t have any, and look how well that worked out for us…just kidding there homeboy. By the way, I love that whole illiterate homespun sincerity thing you got going for you.(although it seems like an act) All those misspellings are kind of cute and certainly add to your street cred. You give me the feeling of being immersed in good ol’ southern culture.

  37. Dionysis

    “you who will vote for Obama simply because he is a democrat and not a republicon. Right?”

    Wrong. I’m an unaffiliated voter, not a member of any party. It is true that I will not vote for a Republicon on the national level. I care too much about this country to allow it to revert back to the incompetent mismanagement of the party of greed, intolerance, authoritarianism and dishonesty. That is not a ringing endorsement of the purity of Democrats, but it is my fervent belief (shared by many, many people) that continued control of government by the Republicons will be ruinous for this country.

    You can make whatever predictions you wish, of course. What is known is that there is a groundswell of support for a new paradigm, and John McSame, who has done a pretty good job, along with a compliant, fawning media, to falsely portray himself as some kind of ‘maverick’ who can effectuate change. Nonsense. Everyone should spend a bit of time reviewing his history (other than the ‘war hero’ era of ancient history) in Washington. One need just look at the negative effects of legislation and lobbying behavior by his ‘economic’ guru, Phil Gramm to put the lie to his phony claims.
    Obama was not my first, or even second pick early on. But I am behind him now, and will work hard to keep the ‘cons away from power.
    Oh, and check out the newly released Senate report on the Iraq chronology. Bush, Cheney and the others lied us into a war that McSame wants so bad to continue. He has nothing to offer but mealy-mouthed, jingoistic clap-trap that any thinking person should repudiate.

  38. donny

    WMP:”Exit polls of late have suggested that democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton will be wary of staying democrat and going for Hillary. 50% in Kentucky said that if Obama is the demcorast (sic) candidate, they will vote for McCain.”

    Well, too bad our election system works on actual votes instead of informal, in-acurate exit-polls. McCain attacks Bush and his supporters when he was running against him, then turns around and hugs the guy? Mccain is an old, cotton-mouthed fool, and anyone with any country-sense could see that from a mile away.

    Mr. Obama may not be an ideal candidate, but as long as people like you and trav spew out disinformation and double-speak about Mccain and Clinton, I will know he is, by far, the best option any of us commoners have had in a long time. Maybe ever.

    So, please, continue with the idiotic comparisons. Rest assured, it will only cement our desire to vote Hussein come this fall.

    The original letter-writer is correct. Hasn’t Rush told you? Op Chaos is no longer relevant.

    Donny P. Williams

  39. travelah

    Donny, the problem is you are not a commoner. The commoners are those folks in the middle states out there somewhere and the Obammunists do not think too highly of them (even though they live right next door to Illinois and not Arkansas.
    I think your mind was made up before the election began. You are going to vote Democrat regardless if a moderate such as McCain were on the ticket or the leftist radical Obama.

  40. William P Miller

    Big E, President Bush was a governor for 2 terms in one of our biggest and most populous states, Texas. That is executive. In fact, most presidents moved up from governor. Some were wonderful as president, as in President Ronald Wilson Reagan, our greatest president of the last half of the 20th century. And some have been a dismal failure, can you say Jimmah Cahtah? Governors know how to run things from the top of an organization. Junior senators like Barack Hussein Obama do not. He only had a year working in the US Senate before he started to run for president. And when you run for president, you don’t have time to vote. So it’s more like he has 1 year federal level experience.

    McCain is the man for the job. He should run Hillary Rodham Clinton as his VP candidate. That would completely blow Obama out of the water, Twin Towers style. Oh wait, Obama isn’t a Muslim any more is he. That’s right. He swtched to Rev Wright’s church to be politically correct.

  41. Dionysis

    “Big E, President Bush was a governor for 2 terms in one of our biggest and most populous states, Texas.”

    A state with one of the weakest gubernatorial offices in the country.

    “Some were wonderful as president…some have been a dismal failure…”

    And one has been both a “dismal failure” and achieved history by turning in the lowest approval ratings since poll taking began…George ‘Chimpy’ Bush.

    “McCain is the man for the job.”

    To finish driving the ship of state over the edge, and further push the country to third-world status.

    “He should run Hillary Rodham Clinton as his VP candidate.”

    After her speech today, that’s not likely. Boo hoo. Early reports are that the McSame camp are worried s***less now. They wanted a tepid ‘endorsement’ of Obama, and got something else.

    “He swtched to Rev Wright’s church to be politically correct.”

    Did Obama confide in you his reasons for joining the church, or is this a variation of your prescribed talking point from Wingnut Central?

    I haven’t forgotten you, travelah the tireless troll. You upchucked:

    “Obammunists”

    So, first you snivel about “ad hom” attacks, yet, ever the hypocrite, continue to try and besmirch Obama supporters as “Obamunnists.”

    Wm. P. Miller and travelah should consider forming a comedy duo.

  42. travelah

    Alan, I am guessing you never had to go through Carter’s inflation/interest rate experience.

  43. travelah

    Dionysis, I would think well informed voters would want to know of Obama’s leftist links, his PLO adviser in his campaign, his leftist/Marxian official blogger, his actively seeking and receiving the endorsement of a Marxist group called The Party in his 1996 campaign for the Illinois senate (a group that ONLY endorsed far leftist candidates from 1992 -1998), his role as an activist for the far left radical organization ACORN. Obammunist sounds like a perfect descriptive. Roll out the Red, Green and Black colors behind him instead of the Red White and Blue and voila’ we have the perfect promotional poster for the Obammunists.

  44. Dionysis

    “Dionysis, I would think well informed voters would want to know of Obama’s leftist links, his PLO adviser in his campaign, his leftist/Marxian official blogger, his actively seeking and receiving the endorsement of a Marxist group called The Party in his 1996 campaign for the Illinois senate (a group that ONLY endorsed far leftist candidates from 1992 -1998), his role as an activist for the far left radical organization ACORN. Obammunist sounds like a perfect descriptive. Roll out the Red, Green and Black colors behind him instead of the Red White and Blue and voila’ we have the perfect promotional poster for the Obammunists.”

    If even some of this is true, rest assured your brethren at Fox News will have a field day with it. And frankly, you’re incessant efforts to try and vilify anyone who might support Obama as some kind of Communist stooge is highly insulting, which you are surely aware. You would have people believe that Obama is some kind of closet Marxist, and that his supporters are either dimwitted dupes or fellow travelers.

    The Republicon side is so bankrupt of effective tactics that they’ve now resorted to this:

    “McCain policy advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin now argues that it is Senator Obama – not McCain – who wants to continue Bush’s fiscal policies.”

    When the reality (that’s objective reality, not wingnut reality) is this:

    “McCain describes himself as the strongest support of the war in Iraq. His answer to $4.00 gasoline is to cut oil company taxes by $4 billion a year….

    Like Bush, McCain has proposed massive tax cuts that primarily benefit high-income households…

    Like Bush, McCain’s massive tax cuts and spending on security leaves little for other priorities…

    Like Bush, McCain rails against wasteful spending in the abstract but fails to target any actual programs…

    Like Bush, McCain is likely to drive up the national debt by trillions of dollars. Bush took a debt of $3.4 trillion – and headed down – up to $5.4 trillion. McCain’s budget plan would drive the deficit to $12.7 trillion…”

    And, according to that bastion of Communist propaganda, the Wall Street Journal:

    “Obama also has expensive proposals, such as his health care coverage plan and middle-class tax cuts. But he is clear where the money is coming from…

    That’s why the Wall Street Journal concluded that Barack Obama’s budget “adds up, probably.” But McCain’s plan, it concluded, “would either cause the federal deficit to explode or would require unprecedented spending cuts.”

    http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/06/06/dhe-obama-bush-term/

    Face it, travelah. You and your kind have ridden high during the last nearly eight disasterous years, advancing the power of the president (abhorrent to true conservative values, just as his explosion of government size, his designer war, his attacks on the Bill of Rights, etc. are as well). Your days are numbered in terms of having any political influence. You and the other 25 percenters can cry on each other’s shoulders, as you’ll not likely find any sympathy from the vast majority of Americans.

  45. entopticon

    William P Miller said: “Oh wait, Obama isn’t a Muslim any more is he. That’s right. He swtched to Rev Wright’s church to be politically correct.”

    You are a shameful, pathetic, bigoted liar. Obama has never been a Muslim. Not for one single day in his life. That’s not an argument, it’s a fact.

    It is ridiculous that you constantly tout that you are a Christian, when you are caught breaking one of the ten commandments on a daily basis. Stop fabricating lies and atone.

  46. travelah

    Barack Hussein Obama was born into a Muslim family and all of his father’s side of the family were devout practicing Muslims. Obama’s stepfather was Muslim and Obama attended a Muslim school in his youth. When enrolled in a Catholic school, school records indicate he was enrolled as a Muslim. Now, from the perspective of many Muslim’s, he is an apostate and given the rotten perspective of his twenty year association with a racist hate-mongering church, many Christians might consider him as apostate as well.

    Well informed voters do not have to rely on the left’s half truths and misrepresentations to discover the truth of a candidate’s background. You can bet the voters in ,i>those middle states out there somewhere won’t especially those Kentuckians who know better than Obama what state they border (his).

  47. William P Miller

    Alan said: “Carter was tons better than Reagan.”

    Like travelah, I wonder if you were around as an adult during the Cahtah years, Alan. Because we had double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, and double digit interests on loans…even mortgages. My second wife had a 13% during those days. America was disrespected by the Iranians when many of our citizens were held hostage for a long time. When the Iranians realized Reagan won the election, they quickly released them, fearing Dutch would come over and kick their collective seats.

    Jimmah Cahtah I’m sure is a decent man. But he was a dismal failure as president. President Ronald Wilson “Dutch” Reagan corrected the ills of the Carter years within the first 2 years of his first term. God bless him. And he earned the eternal enmity of the democrat party, as a result, because he proved once and for all that big government and high taxes and bloated bureaucracy were bankrupt philosophies. Reagan lowered taxes significantly. Which RAISED government revenues because people were freed to spend more money and invest more and save more. The whole economy took off for many years of boom times. God bless Dutch Reagan. The only president I enthusiastically voted for. Obama even tipped his hat to Reagan by saying he was like a new Reagan, only a far left version.

  48. entopticon

    travelah, you are a shamefully despicable, bigoted liar and you will burn for it.

    Obama has NEVER been a Muslim in his entire life and every single legitimate investigation has said the same thing. The school that Obama attended in Indonesia was a secular school.

    You really are one of the most despicable liars that I have ever seen. Here is the truth with numerous links from legitimate news sources that completely debunk your shamefully bigoted lies:
    http://www.barackobama.com/factcheck/2007/11/12/obama_has_never_been_a_muslim_1.php

    Shame on you.

  49. William P Miller

    Mr e said: “travelah, you are a shamefully despicable, bigoted liar and you will burn for it.”

    Why do you defend yourself in such extreme a manner Mr e? Mr t has in no way deserved suxch an extreme reaction. Mr Obama WAS a Muslim for much of his life. He only changed to Rev Wright’s “Christian” church 20 years ago for political reasons. In his book, Obama even saysd “if thing sgo wrong, I’ll stand with the Muslims”.

  50. entopticon

    William P Miller you are a lying sack of you know what. Did you even read the all of the links proving that you are a liar on the link I provided?

    If there was even ONE single shred of evidence proving that Obama had lied about never having been a Muslim, the press would go haywire with that information and the election would be over for him instantly.

    Instead of a legitimate news source, you have been citing spam emails from white supremacist groups that have been spreading disinformation. As noted by EVERY SINGLE legitimate news source and fact checker, those claims are complete garbage. The proof is incontrovertible.

    Even the worst right-wing extremists admit that Obama has NEVER been a Muslim. The only people who believe that crap are white supremacist dirtbags.

    You are a shamefully bigoted liar for spreading those despicable falsehoods. If there is a hell, you will have a special place put aside for you.

  51. travelah

    entop muses …If there was even ONE single shred of evidence proving that Obama had lied about never having been a Muslim, the press would go haywire with that information and the election would be over for him instantly.

    Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press wrote on January 24, 2007, that

    … Obama’s mother, divorced from Obama’s father, married a man from Indonesia named Lolo Soetoro, and the family relocated to the country from 1967-71. At first, Obama attended the Catholic school, Fransiskus Assisis, where documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim, the religion of his stepfather. The document required that each student choose one of five state-sanctioned religions when registering – Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Protestant. ….
    (from: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5286 )

    Additionally from the same source citing the Los Angeles Times …

    His former Roman Catholic and Muslim teachers, along with two people who were identified by Obama’s grade-school teacher as childhood friends, say Obama was registered by his family as a Muslim at both schools he attended. That registration meant that during the third and fourth grades, Obama learned about Islam for two hours each week in religion class.

    The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. “We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played,” said Zulfin Adi. … Obama’s younger sister, Maya Soetoro, said in a statement released by the campaign that the family attended the mosque only “for big communal events,” not every Friday.

    The well informed voter will find a wealth of interesting research regarding the man born a Muslim and given the name Hussein by his Muslim father and family. Daniel Pipes has provided a wealth of resources documenting Obama’s background. Of course, the leftists will attempt to besmirch Pipe’s character and reputation but they cannot dismiss the mainstream journalists who find OPbama and his aides to constantly contradict themselves regarding Obama’s background.

    http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5544

  52. entopticon

    The truth about ludicrous sliming by people such as travelah and Daniel Pipes from factcheck.org, an independent fact checking organization from the conservative Annenberg Center:
    http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/sliming_obama.html

    People like travelah use swiftboating campaigns of lies because their arguments have absolutely no merit on the facts.

    Obsess on your racist lies about Obama’s heritage all you want travelah, you despicable bigot.

    Gay black Marxists are coming to get you travelah. Oh the things they are going to do to you.

  53. travelah

    Well informed voters would note that factcheck.org does not address the concerns that legitimate and noted journalists have raised concerning Obama’s background. Those inquiring into his background are not concerned with wild fantasies of planted Islamic operatives or making untrue claims of swearing on a Koran etc. Factcheck.org also failed to do an extensive background check into Obama’s church and given the recent history of events that have happened since the factcheck post, their “facts” seem to be poor and unreliable.

  54. travelah

    Well informed voters in 2004 recognized that the term “swiftboating” turned out to accurately reflect the Democrat candidate’s less than honorable actions in Vietnam. As such, it contributed to that candidate’s rejection at the polls. These same well informed voters will recognize the same smear tactics employed against legitimate inquiry into this out of nowhere candidate. Well informed voters appreciate the vetting of any candidate.

  55. entopticon

    travelah… only the most extremely warped, racist would even make an issue of whether or not Obama was ever a Muslim in the first place.

    That said, it is laughable that you are arguing to privilege right-wing conspiracies based on heresay and lies over EVERY SINGLE legitimate news investigation.

    Obama’s father was an atheist, you bigoted monster.

    Yes, trying to smear someone over their connections to people based on religion is McCarthyism at its ugly worst. Shame on you.

    Here is yet another article from a legitimate news source dispelling the lies and vile bigotry of people such as travelah:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112802757.html

  56. travelah

    Obama’s father was an atheist, you bigoted monster.
    It would be the rare event for an atheist Muslim to name his son Hussein. In fact, the name Hussein in Muslim societies is reserved for children of Muslims.
    As for Obama’s participation in Muslim society among his Muslim stepfather’s family, the legitimate New York Times and the Associated Press have each explored this matter and interviewed witnesses from his own family that dispell the notion that these truths are far fetched. If a man cannot be truthful about his own past and childhood, how can well informed voters ever trust him as leader of the free world?

  57. I did experience the late 70’s inflation, and Carter made some mistakes, but they were nothing compared to living in the totalitarian 80s under Reagan, Who was far worse than Bush 2, a true monster. I barely survived.

  58. Even the Swiftboater’s own wbsite primarily criticises Kerry’s political actions after returning from Vietnam and makes little mention of his actions while still there. What little criticism they do mention is a criticism of tactical judgement, not loyalty or honor.

  59. Religion is an idividual choice and thus not race. Religious discrimination is not racist, and can be easily avoided by the choice of the recipient. However, Obama only really gained that choice at 18, a childhood religion doesn’t count.

  60. travelah

    Alan, Reagan set the stage for a solid economic foundation that this country has prospered with ever since. Marginal tax rates were drastically reduced. Investments soared. Inflation was made negligible. Economic opportunities were unprecedented. Public confidence was restored. Was he perfect? Not by any measure. Did the country benefit? In a big way.

    The “swiftboaters” knew Kerry’s record and who he was better than anybody else. The North Vietnamese regarded him as an asset in their war after he returned. He was essentially a stooge for their benefit (from their perspective).

    Religion is a choice and has nothing to do with race. The point is that Obama is not being truthful about his childhood and background. Now, hos choices in aligning himself and being mentored by racists hate mongers is another story altogether.

  61. William P Miller

    travelah, if Alan was 7 years old in the late 70s and remembers Carter as “having made a few mistakes” but is much better than Reagan, there is no hope in debating him. Just another spoiled gen x’er who doesn’t have enough life experience under his belt to appreciate when we do have it good. Just another knee jerk liberal who automatically hates anyone with an (R) after his name.

    And Mr e, did you miss your meds today? You really outdid yourself today, with the emotional outbursts and name calling. By the way, Barack Hussein Obama was born into the Muslim religion and went to Mosque as a boy and young man. This is easily verifiable. He changed to whatever form of “Christian” that Rev Wright spews. Personally, Rev Wright tends to spew a lot of hate, the opposite of Christ’s teachings.

    If you think Kerry got swiftboated, wait to you see what will happen to Obama. That man has a lot of baggage that the liberal mainstream press didn’t report on. And primaries are for the fringes of each party. In the general election, Obama will be brought before the populace and all his warts will be shown. And he will lose because of it.

  62. travelah

    William, those are valid points. I am giving the young man the benefit of the doubt however. Along that line of thinking, well informed voters might take interest in an article on National Review Online today. Daniel J. Flynn addresses a topic that has recently been the cause of a lot of flaming from the leftists here, that or racism. Mr. Flynn examines the racist heritage and programs of the American Left and the condescension and outright racist discrimination the Left has engaged in over the history of their movement. It is a good read …

    America’s Racist Left
    Instead of merely ignoring the problems of African Americans, socialists and progressives actively contributed to them.

    By Daniel J. Flynn

    If Barack Obama becomes America’s first black president, he will fit nicely into a radical narrative that places leftists always and everywhere combating bigotry, shattering stereotypes, and advancing race relations. Indeed, merely to oppose him, as the Clintons, Geraldine Ferraro, and the voters of Kentucky, West Virginia, and Indiana have discovered, is to invite charges of “racism” from his enthusiastic supporters — a trend that is sure to increase now that the contest has ceased to be an intramural one.

    But history rarely conforms to the scripts that ideologues write. Racism, as important to understanding the American past as class divisions are to understanding European history, stains the history of homegrown radicals just as it stains the history of the nation which those radicals sought to change so radically. The American history that the Left lambastes is the American Left’s history, too.

    the rest of the article is here …
    http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTc0NDgzOTlkY2MyNzJhNDgyNGNkY2JkMWQ0NGJkOWI=#more

  63. entopticon

    yes William P Miller, those points are easily verifiable, and that is why we know that they are absolute loads of crap. Did you even bother to read all of the reports from independent fact checking organizations that I provided?

    You are citing a spam email that white supremacist organizations have been circulating. EVERY SINGLE fact checking organization has said the same thing: despite a lot of rumors and lies from idiotic right-wing extremists, it is a fact beyond any doubt whatsoever that Obama has never been a Muslim.

    travelah just makes whateever he wants up as he goes along, but he just proves himself to be an absolute joke. It is not a controversial fact that Obama’s father was always an atheist. Obama had a stepfather that was a MUslim for a few years, but neither he, nor his mother were ever Muslims. Not for one day, not for one minute.

    EVERY SINGLE fact checking organization is on my side. All you have is a spam email white supremacist groups have been sending around, which makes you and your arguments one big bigoted joke.

  64. entopticon

    travelah, just too funny that you woul post a link to a National Review article on the Mountain XPress site.

    Seriously, where do you think you are? The Mountain Xpress is a liberal weekly. If people here, aside from a handful of trolls like you, were interested in reading that right-wing drivel, they sure as heck would not be reading the Mountain Xpress.

    Olease travelah, tell me the name of your church so that I can show up every week and start ranting to all the parishioners about how how idiotitic and sick and rightest evangelical churches are.

    It would be no problem right? They don’t deserve a forum of their own, right? They should be glad to hear other opinions ranting about how despicable and misguided they are, right?

    They are tax exempt, so they won’t mind if I put my two cents in every week, right?

  65. travelah

    Well informed voters have an appreciation for inclusive media and those who recognize the diversity of viewpoints as being a positive in any well read society. The key to making informed decisions is to welcome a wealth of information not from one biased viewpoint but from the entire spectrum of contributed thought. It is the difference between an exceptional journalistic medium and one ranked only among the mediocre. I have found the more interesting souls to converse with are those who are just as comfortable perusing the National Review as they are the Mountain Express or any other publication. I enjoy reading both and I learn from each. I am sure I am not alone with this journalistic paradigm.

  66. Eli Cohen

    Here’s a little diverse viewpoint for you “T”. Eighty-one percent of the world’s executions in 2002 took place in just three countries: China, Iran and the USA…the new axis of evil!
    The golfer Tiger Woods is the world’s highest paid sportman. He earns $78 million a year — or $148 every second. 71 of that 78 million comes from sponsorships. Tigers Woods is paid $55,000 a day to wear Nike caps; a Thai worker is paid $4 a day to make them.
    There are 67,000 people employed in the lobbying industry in Washington DC — 125 for each elected member of Congress.
    The world’s trade in illegal drugs is estimated to be worth around $400 billion — about the same as the world’s legal pharmaceutical industry. About 200 million around the world abuse drugs. In Netherlands, marijuana is sold through ‘coffee shops’ and the amount sold to each customer is regulated by police; interestingly, while 37% of Americans admit to using marijuana, only 16% of the Dutch had done so.
    Black men born in the US today stand a one in three chance of going to jail. In June 2002, the number of people behind bars hit 2 million and the US overtook Russia as the world’s largest prison population.

  67. William P Miller

    travelah, thanks for the National Review article. How true. Yes, the unintended consequence (I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt) of Johnson’s War on Poverty was the destruction of the black family. In order to get AFDC, black women had to shoo their men out of the house. And in order to get more AFDC, the women would let those same men back in through the window at midnight to make more welfare babies for bigger AFDC checks. Whole generations of black children have grown up without a father figure in the house. A true tragedy, because this is a primary cause of the angst and crime in the big cities.

    On the National Review, yes liberals have been pointing fingers for years. Calling others bigots, etc. I imagine to make themselves feel superior. Yet, how many of these liberals associate with black folks? Friends, neighbors, or? It is ironic that many in NYC for years have looked down on the South and called us bigots. Yet, NYC was at the same time one of the most segregated parts of the country. Irish in Irish neighborhoods. Jew here, Italians there. Blacks here, Puerto Ricans there. Same with Boston. In fact, when nationwide busing was ordered in the mid 1970s, guess where the biggest trouble spot was? Yup BOSTON Mass. Whites hit the streets screaming in protest. Where did the busing happen with great ease and peacefullness? Charlotte NC. So why does this happen, the name calling of others? It is almost always PROJECTION of one’s own faults on the other. So when you hear a person yelling “racist”, almost always it is the yeller who is decrying his own racism. Are your ears burning Mr e? -:)

  68. entopticon

    Yeah, it’s so annoying how liberals will call you racist just for little things like using kkk rhetoric, taking issue with someone over their ethnic sounding midle name, or disseminating facts from a white supremacist spam email. Golly, it’s just so unfair.

    By the way, John Wayne Gacy buried teenage boys in his basement after he raped them, so I guess that means that “John” McCain did the same thing. And so did John Hagee! And John Denver! How terrible of him.

    It’s ok though, because John is a Christian name, so they all must have had their reasons.

  69. entopticon

    “the diversity of viewpoints as being a positive in any well read society. The key to making informed decisions is to welcome a wealth of information not from one biased viewpoint but from the entire spectrum of contributed thought.”

    Very true travelah, but it doesn’t all have to happen in the same place, and that is what makes you a silly troll.

    As I offered, I would love to come heckle the people at your church about how foolishly misguided and hypocritical evangelical Christianity is since a diversity of opinion is so important to you. You still haven’t told us where you go on Sunday travelah. Is it a secret?

  70. travelah

    As I offered, I would love to come heckle the people at your church about how foolishly misguided and hypocritical evangelical Christianity is since a diversity of opinion is so important to you. You still haven’t told us where you go on Sunday travelah. Is it a secret?

    entop, you will just have to start going to church until you find the right one just for you, like the rest of us. I can recommend the Wesleyan Church. Hopefully you won’t shoot your mouth off to those “evil” Southern Baptists.

  71. entopticon

    travelah, i don’t really want to go to your church. I was just pointing out the parallel of you coming here, to a liberal website and ranting about how horrible liberals are.

    You mentioned that you had been a Wesleyan, and then you said you weren’t. Are you a Wesleyan again today?

    Actually, there have been two times when I was so offended by the sermons in Southern baptist churches that I would have stood up and walked out if it wouldn’t have created a scene for the people I was with.

    All Southern Baptists may not be evil, but their church, which was founded as a pro-slavery rebellion against the real baptist church, certainly has more than enough evil to go around.

    I kind of doubt Jesus would have approved of the pro-slavery cult that they formed in his name.

  72. travelah

    entop, you cannot seem to get anything right. I am Wesleyan-Arminian with regard to my soteriology and theological outlook as opposed to being Calvinistic. I fellowship with a Wesleyan denomination because I agree with them on most theological issues.
    As you have been told several times, this is a diverse site with a strong liberal slant. I have no problem with that being a social libertarian and I appreciate the Mountain X’ embrace of diversity. You do not and that is simply a problem you will have to come to terms with. Perhaps anger management classes at another college campus to go with the seven you have graced so far?

  73. entopticon

    travelah said “As you have been told several times, this is a diverse site with a strong liberal slant.”

    And as I have proven time and time again, you are wrong. Show me the right-wing cartoons and right -wing articles to prove the imaginary political diversity that you refer to. You can’t, because it only exists in your imagination.

    The Mountain XPress would go out of business before you could say “gay, black, Marxist conspiracy” if they started publishing right-wing slanted articles and cartoons. They are 100% liberal and there is nothing wrong with that.

    It is beyond laughable that someone who has issues with the fact the Barack Obama has been related to Muslims has the nerve to say that I don’t embrace diversity.

    It is beyond hilarious that someone who thinks homosexuals are immoral sinners that need to be cured would say that I don’t embrace diversity.

    And the list goes on and on and on and on and on.

    I would fight to the death for right-wing lunatics like you to have the right to express yourselves and have your own websites. I just think it is despicably disrespectful for you to spend all day on a liberal website ranting about liberalism.

    If you spouted your KKK rhetoric on a kkk website, I would still think that it was just as sick, but I would certainly defend your right to do it.

    I even believe you have the right to express your views here, just as I would have the right to stand outside in front of your church with a giant banner of Satan and Jesus necking while chanting the slogan, “Christianity is Stupid,” but just because we have that right, it doesn’t mean either is appropriate.

    Just as the people in your church would not be so happy with me doing that, I don’t have to like or respect your decision to spend all day long on a liberal website insulting liberals and preaching bigoted garbage.

  74. Eli Cohen

    Travelah, what I think entopticon is trying to say is (let me put it in terms you can understand) this is the smart people site. When you (and willie boy) log on and say something stupid, it is very irritating. Your needling anti-intellectual commentary adds nothing to the conversation and your admitted christian beliefs indicates a superstitious bent that is out of place here. I, for one, don’t find myself in need of being enlightened by your white supremacist rants. Your kind have been exposed over and over again for the greedy, bigoted, lying republican scum buckets that you are. Your whole philosophy is morally bankrupt and with the elections in ’08, we, as a country can begin the healing process and turn this country around. You and your conservative, anti-science, anti-humanist, profit before people, (and, did I say lying?) ratbags can crawl back in your holes and fester like the open sores on humanity that you are. My praise to your god that you guys are dying out.

    Now, say something stupid like: go back under your bridge…

  75. travelah

    entop, if you believe you have a case to make, then take it to the Mountain X editorial board. Otherwise you are crying in your proverbial soup. This is not a private leftist board. I think, for now, I am evidence of that fact.

    Big E, please wait until after the insecticide clears out of your house under the bridge before re-entering it.

  76. An obama victory will mean that conservatives like Travelah will relocate as necessary to a cluster of conservative states and SECEDE, as they should and as liberals should have done in 1981 AND 2001.
    If they ban zoning I will join them! However Obama is not that big a zoner because his RM-5 neighbors can build 108 units per acre and 45 feet tall and his freind Rezco was a homebuilder. However his neighbors can’t open a battered women’s shelter without permission, which is pretty offenseve of Obama to tolerate.

  77. travelah

    Alan, not at all. It means I would work toward his defeat in 2012. Four years of a leftist economic agenda should provide an easier path than in 2008 and perhaps drive one of the final nails into that inept coffin called the Democrat Party. I might even become active in the Libertarian Party again as long as it is not commandeered by the likes of Bob Barr.

  78. Bob Barr is a zoner too! He lives in a Smyrna RA-5 zone, residential, attached (which I think means duplex) 9 units per acre. But still not as bad as Clinton or Mumpower. Barr is no alternative.

  79. entopticon

    travelah, I have no problem with the Mountain Xpress. Actually, quite the opposite; I greatly appreciate having a local weekly with a liberal perspective on the issues.

    Actually, I was just hanging out with one of the long time writers this weekend and talked to one of the editors just today. More power to the Mountain Xpress.

    I clearly stated in my post that you have the right to be here, but that doesn’t mean that it is in good taste for you to hang out at a liberal website speaking ill of liberals, any more than it would be in good taste for me to hang out in front of your church with a “Jesus was a gay black man” picket sign. I have the right to do it, but that doesn’t make it the right thing to do.

    Since I said that pretty clearly the first time. I’m guessing you may have a serious reading comprehension problem. I hear they have some wonderful continuing ed classes at AB Tech, so don’t be shy.

  80. travelah

    entop, don’t be offended if I do not rely on your measure of good taste. It is not liberalism in particular that I oppose, it is that biased, intolerant political beast called the left that despises uninhibited discussion of ideas. That left that spews unfounded accusations of racist, haters, KKK, bigots and despises the libertine foundations of what makes this country a great place. The Left is an enemy of the very people who tend to align themselves with it. It offers no relief to a great many people stuck working two jobs as wait staff and bartenders and any other low-moderate wage occupation you can come up with.

    The Left guarantees a lock-in because it embraces an economic regimen designed to tear down opportunity and replace it with subservient economic enslavement. Your unsubstantiated focus on racism is a perfect example. Men such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are beholden to ensuring their audience is captive, enslaved to a victim mentality. Leftist liberalism feeds that sycophant mentality. On the other hand, give a black man an education (a REAL education focused on a career), let him enter the professional workforce and he no longer feels or views the masters (Jackson, Sharpton etc)as relevant in his future. It is very much the difference between Left and right.

    You are in a very real sense a disposable pawn in a Leftist design. There is no economic prosperity for you, your peers and unfortunately, everybody who is seduced into the destructive mindset you promote suffer in the end. It is not about liberalism. It is about a political mentality that hates everything that has made us great.

    Now, come back with a smarmy comment and feel good about it.

  81. William P Miller

    I must say travelah makes a lot of sense in his posts. Thanks Mr t. Mr e and Big e, you guys are very entertaining, I must say. But your posts are far from intellectual and, in the case of Mr e, far from civil. Dudes, make your points without the vitriol and without the silly comments. You will be taken more seriously. NO nix that. Please keep it just the way you do it now. You guys make me roll on the floor in laughter!

  82. And you definately should picet outside churches with a sign that says “Jesus was a gay black man”
    You have a moral responsibility to truth and the first amendment to do exactly that.

  83. entopticon

    travelah, I am glad to oblige. Your arguments wouldn’t be quite so painfully hilarious if it wasn’t for the fact that under the leftist government that you constantly deride, we had the strongest economy in the history of the world, but when the right took over we went from being the biggest creditor nation on the planet to the biggest debtor nation on the planet.

    In one single Presidency, the right-wing government has increased the national debt more than all of the other Presidents in American history….. combined! Your arguments really are a joke.

    If the left is so bad, why do you spend all day hanging around a 100% left-leaning website? Your hypocrisy is side-splitting.

    When you stop using kkk rhetoric about black liberationists and Marxist conspiracies, I will stop calling you a bigot. Until then enjoy your limited exposure to the truth.

    As Rachel Maddow rightly argued on Keith Olberman tonight, it is not enough to simply correct asinine bigots spreading disinformation such as the bs that Obama is a Muslim, it is important to stigmatize and humiliate bigots for such despicable lies, so that others might think twice before heading down the same shameful low road.

    You hang out at a 100% left-leaning website all day long, so you are either a hypocrite or a total joke. Actually, I think it is pretty safe to say that both are amply true.

  84. entopticon

    To say that travelah makes a lot of sense in his posts is beyond laughable, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

    When travelah quoted you on the Campaign Fruit Has Ripened thread, accidentally thinking it was me, and he acerbically said something to the extent that that quote was so foolish that it should be entered in some kind of contest, he was actually spot on for once.

    That was just too funny; travelah singling out a quote as the dumbest thing that I ever said and it was actually something you said. That was almost as funny as travelah citing an Amazon.com customer named “fruitloop” as some hilariously weak substitute for evidence over a renowned historian on the same thread.

    Like travelah, you constantly hang out at a liberal website and complain about liberals, which makes you a joke at best, and unfortunately that is being very charitable.

  85. travelah

    Well informed voters should know ….
    Rachel Sklar at Huffington address Olbermann’s misogynist comments exposing and affirming what I have stated about the Left. It does not represent it’s sidled and confused constituency. MSNBC is a misogynist “boys club” that has great disrespect for women in general and in Olbermann’s case a personal history of using and trashing the women in his personal life. I am not at all surprised that these types of abusers of women would be exalted by yourself and a few other Obammunists as examples to follow and emulate. Well informed voters would do well to examine the types of people that infest the Left. They are no friends of women under any circumstance.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/25/keith-olbermanns-idea-for_n_98557.html

  86. Why on earth do either of you want to live in the same country as the other???? You both clearly need SECESSION! Then you can both be rid of each other, and I can be rid of at least one of you and maybe both, or all if we can cut the USA into more than 2 or 3 pieces.

  87. entopticon

    Careful travelah, every time a right-wing extremist uses the term misogynist an angel dies. It’s true.

    Much as there is no such thing as a liberal KKK member, as you and WPM know I’m sure, there is no such thing as a right-wing feminist.

    Sorry travelah, but the history of the right-wing is the history of the oppression of women.

    Keith Olberman is a misogynist, but Rush Limbaugh, the man who coined the term feminazi, is a fine upstanding feminist in travelah’s world.

    Evangelicals have a wonderful track record on women’s issues if by wonderful you mean nightmarishly horrific.

    A man who doesn’t believe that women have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies is trying to lecture liberals on misogyny. The most hilarious thing is, you actually think you sound intelligent. You really do have absolutely no idea of how clownishly ridiculous your arguments are. It’s awesome. Keep up the fine work.

  88. donald pearson wayensville

    travelah’s forced, fake compassion for women and his pseudo-rage at misogynoy makes for some funny reading. yezzur!

  89. William P Miller

    Mr e, I don’t doubt that most who work at the Xpress are liberal. But, the Xpress itself doesn’t have a particularly liberal slant. Most free weeklies are way leftwing, but not his one. And I applaud them for remaining in the center. Any journalist who reports hard news from a politcial slant, left or right, is unprofessional. The Xpress is professional. I wonder why you make such an issue of me and travelah posting on your imagined “liberal” website. Is it a self-esteem issue with you? That you cannot take criticism in response to your ridiculously obamunist comments here?

    It’s rather humorous that leftists scream about free speech rights for communists and anarchists, but when middle of the road or conservatives voice their opinions, these same leftists try to shout them down with name-calling insults. Like I said in a previous post, most every name caller is in fact decrying the same thing in himself that he thinks he sees in others. Your penchant for calling people racists and bigots only advertises your own racism.

    But please continue as you have. You are very entertaining! -:)

  90. Eli Cohen

    willy p., The south is:

    The poorest region in the United States, measured by per capita income and the poverty rate.

    The region of the United States with the worst health status, by every measure — lowest life expectancy, highest rates of disease.

    The region of the United States with the lowest average educational attainment.

    These differences are widening, not narrowing.

    Wait, everyone forgot the bible belt part. Poor, ignorant and unemployed engenders Christian Fundamentalism, which, when mixed with the other handicaps of the region gives you a national embarrassment with voting rights. Spread that ghastly mix Northward through Appalachia and pretty soon someone like George Bush or John McCain gets to be president.

    Job One of the Democrats should be dragging these folks into modern times through Universal Health care, education and employment. Oh, contraceptives first though—until we get them educated we need to stop the perpetuating.

  91. William P Miller

    Big e, the South is backward? Then why are all you yankees moving here? The superiority-complexed “educated” yankees have made a big mess of their homeland, so they move here to God’s country. Since you could not make a socialist paradise work in your own part of the country, we locals are loathe to hear your suggestions. The proof is in the pudding.

    Besides, I am born and raised here. And educated here. And live a fairly good life with my health intact. And where do you live? Under a bridge with your roomy Mr e. -:)

  92. The Xpress editors, reporters and owner are human, and all humans have agendas and slants. Covering that up is never “professional”. It is merely dishonest. The north is cold and requires heating fuel, which was not caused by politics. It actually may be mitigated somewhat by energy policies.
    But travelah is right that ZONING is mostly yankee, though certainly adopted by Biltmore Forest Republicans and Mumpower. And ZONING has accellerated sunbelt migration by raising northern rents. Liberals have a way of setting standards, like building codes and minimum wages, and then ignoring those who can’t reach them.

  93. William P Miller

    From Wikipedia: “Journalism ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by professional journalists. Historically and currently, this subset of media ethics is widely known to journalists as their professional “code of ethics” or the “canons of journalism.” The basic codes and canons commonly appear in statements drafted by both professional journalism associations and individual print, broadcast, and online news organizations.

    ‘Every news organization has only its credibility and reputation to rely on.’-Tony Burman, editor-in-chief of CBC News[1]

    While various existing codes have some differences, most share common elements including the principles of — truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability — as these apply to the acquisition of newsworthy information and its subsequent reportage to the public.”

    Tony, you may used to news organization in the NE being socialist biased, but in many parts of the rest of the country, journalists are actually professional and strive to be as objective as possible in the reporting of hard news. Now editorial pages are a different matter.

    As far as yankee migration to the South, it was fueled primarily by baby boomer retirement, replete with real estate bubble money in their pockets. Thankfully, that is over. Now, open your mind, be a good listener and watcher, and observe how and why the South has a superior culture. Then blend in. Yankee-socialist-think is a bankrupt view that has ruined the NE and Chicago. We are more libertarian here in the South. We value individual freedom and responsibility. We help our neighbors. We smile and say good morning to strangers. We go to church on Sunday. Our families, communities, and country are all important to us. So look, learn and listen…and these Southern values just may rub off on you too.

  94. entopticon

    William P Miller said: “Most free weeklies are way leftwing, but not his one.”

    Do you just love getting caught in lies, or are you actually some kind of satirical joke?

    This is VERY easy to PROVE. I challenge you to show anything besides liberal perspectives from the Mountain XPress. Where are the non-liberal cartoons? Where is the right-wing equivalent of Tom Tomorrow or Molton? They don’t exist. MountainXPress is 100% liberal.

    If they published even mildly right-wing articles and cartoons beyond the extremely rare example as an anthropological curiosity, their readership would put them out of business in an instant.

    There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with news, humor, and human interest stories from a liberal perspective. This is not the Citizen Times.

    Either you are astonishingly cleless, or you are astonishingly dishonest. Either way it doesn’t bode too well for you.

    By the way, as I’ve said before, I think the whole N v S thing is pretty foolish, but seriously, it is a bit ridiculous to keep talking about how independent Southerners are when they keep paying much less of their share of tax dollars, while taking far, far more than their share. Really, on tax issues you should stop looking a gift horse in the mouth because the North pays most of your bills with their hard-earned money.

    Also, the god’s country stuff is a bit much too. The bible belt leads the nation in divorce rates. The state with the lowest divorce rate is Massachusetts. So much for the idiotic argument that gay marriage threatens the institution of marriage.

  95. travelah

    Well informed readers wouold note that none of the articles in this week’s features section are leftist oriented. These same readers most likely read a variety of publications unless they are closed minded bigots.

  96. “objectivity and impartiality” are not humanly possible. If a human being claims them, no matter how “professional” then he is a liar and has violated truthfullness as well.
    And sunbelt migration is only starting because boomer retirement is only starting and it is also heating oil driven. The housing bubble may dam it for a bit, but the dam will burst.

  97. entopticon

    What funny times we live in, when a man who spends all day spouting kkk rhetoric about black liberationists and Marxist conspiracies calls other people closed-minded bigots. That is just too rich.

    It is just as funny that the person who said that environmentalist groups such as the League of Conservation Voters were leftist conspirators, would say that an issue of the Mountain XPress devoted mostly to environmental issues is not left leaning.

    Every right-winger has abysmal environmental ratings and that vast majority of liberals have excellent environmental ratings.

    Somehow in travelah’s hilariously naive and twisted mind, a bunch of liberals writing about environmental issues does not count as left-leaning. You are just too funny travelah.

    I can show you plenty of evidence of left-leaning in this or any other issue, but you cannot show me any evidence of right-leaning because there is none!

    The Mountain Xpress is a liberal weekly, virtually identical in format to countless other liberal weekly’s across the nation.

    It is beyond hilarious that you are so outlandishly naive that you spend all of your time at a liberal weekly’s website and you don’t even know it.

  98. travelah

    Well informed readers and voters know that environmental issues are not left vs. right matters. They also know that partisans on both sides of the issue manipulate the issues to sway people to thier viewpoint. These same well read readers can turn to columns on the MountainX that arer decidely not leftist. Gospel Jerry’s column this week is a fair example of a local developer voicing consternation and parody at several leftist sacred cows.

    entop, take it up with the MountainX editorial board.

  99. travelah

    My family and I have been environmentally aware going back way before it became fashionable. My grandfather, father and tehn myself were engaged in forestry conservation, sustainable agriculture and wildlife habitat when you were still picking peas out of your diaper. We watched the back to the earth homemade volvo pickup truck drivers leave their plastic and garbage behind in the woods when “mother nature” drove them back to their enclaves.
    You do not know what you are talking about as usual but, again, if you have valid complaints , express them to the right people.

  100. entopticon

    I haven’t been picking peas out of my diaper for 40 years, but if you were involved with forestry conservation good for you. Right here on this website you have argued against forestry conservation, (pro-drilling in protected sites) so that is pretty ironic to say the least.

    I am not wrong or even close to be wrong. The great thing about this subject is that it is easily verified at http://www.lcv.org/

    The hilarious thing is, you even said the League of Conservation voters were a bunch of no-good leftists. Too funny travelah; you don’t get to be for conservation and against conservationists. You really do crack me up to no end.

    Why on Earth would I take up my issues with right wing wackos like you with the editorial board? I have no problem with the editorial board, I am very thankful that we have a liberal weekly here.

    I have no complaint about the Mountain Xpress. My only complaint is with people like you who hang around a liberal website and berate the liberal readership all day long, so I am definitely expressing my complaint to the right person: YOU.

    Again, your argument that right-wingers have better voting records than environmental records than liberals is outlandishly ridiculous and easily verifiable.

    You will never hear liberals denying global warming or ranting about environmentalists. That is the exclusive territory of right-wing extremists like you. There is no left-wing version of James Watt or other anti-environmentalist wackos.

    I worked for a phd program in environmental studies and took many courses there myself. I have personally known some of the very first environmentalists in the US, and not a single one of them was a right-winger. In fact of the thousands of environmentalists that I have known, not one single one of them was a right-winger.

    The right-wing has been responsible for the vast majority of environmental atrocities in history, and continues to be as despicably anti-environmental as ever. It is absolutely LUDICROUS for you to seriously try to argue otherwise because the facts are absolutely overwhelming and easily verifiable.

    You will NEVER see a front page cover story in the Mountain Xpress claiming global warming is a hoax. You will NEVER see any story in the Mountain Xpress claiming global warming is a hoax. That is the exclusive domain of nutjob right-wing rags like the Asheville Tribune.

  101. travelah

    Right here on this website you have argued against forestry conservation, (pro-drilling in protected sites) so that is pretty ironic to say the least.

    I would be curious to know what forests are endangered if drilling for oil were allowed off the Pacific coast and in the Gulf, not to mention the proven tundras of Artic Alaska especially given the gret advances in engineering technology over the past 35 years.

    The hilarious thing is, you even said the League of Conservation voters were a bunch of no-good leftists. Too funny travelah; you don’t get to be for conservation and against conservationists. You really do crack me up to no end.

    What was stated properly is that the league is not a non-partisan unbiased organization. I am a conservationist. The League are reactionary and radical.

    Again, your argument that right-wingers have better voting records than environmental records than liberals is outlandishly ridiculous and easily verifiable.

    What was stated was that partisans on both sides of the issue manipulate the issues to sway people to their viewpoint.

  102. travelah

    For somebody who has worked for graduate programs in racism, PhD programs in environmetnalism and have known the earliest environmentalists in the US, after attending seven colleges and graduating from an Ivy League school to boot, it is odd you are sitting there and ……. oh never mind lol … this is the internet, I keep forgetting :)

  103. Eli Cohen

    While I was pickin’ peas out of my diaper, travelah was chasin’ his sister into the outhouse and willee pee was peepin’ through the knothole. You disgusting white trash wingnuts!

  104. Swift Boating

    I was in the military. Kerry deserved the whooping his shipmates dished on him. The overwhelming percentage of guys in that unit that signed that letter says it all. Especially the officers. Trying to equate the term swiftboating with an unfounded assault is totally off base. What it really means is beating a guy over the head with a huge issue he brought on himself.

  105. travelah

    Swift Boating, you are correct. The men of that unit have been slandered and attacked relentlessly for speaking the truth about a man only they were in a position to really know as far as those circumstances were concerned. The American electorate apparently agreed and that is a distinct advantage of a well informed voter.

    Speaking of dirtball slimy Democrat politics …

    These same well informed voters are beginning to see the slimeball Chicago political machine at work again with two of the three persons providing the vetting of Obama’s VP selection in dire need of vetting themselves. One was a principle in securing a pardon for a fugitive swindler in hopes of a political gain. The other, it has been revealed has profited greatly in the mortgage debacle that Obama has declared to be despicable. It seems two facednesss is OK as long as it is for the benefit of an Obammunist.

  106. entopticon

    Odd that I am sitting here and what? If you are implying that I am lying, you are just making a bigger fool of yourself, and that is actually a promethean task, to say the least.

    As opposed to you travelah, I don’t lie. I know that is a reality that is probably beyond your imagination.

    You are arguments are getting too hilariously asinine, even for you. What harm would there be in drilling in protected wildlife areas? And you are trying to say you are a conservationist. You are beyond ridiculous.

    The League of Conservation Voters is partisan? Apparently that is a special secret that only you are aware of. That or you are just lying. Ok, you are just lying.

    The league of conservation voters fights for conservation issues and rates government officials from both parties on their voting records on conservation issues. They don’t force right-wingers to constantly vote against environmental legislation. You are just too funny.

    You said: “What was stated was that partisans on both sides of the issue manipulate the issues to sway people to their viewpoint.”

    Yes, liberals from the environmental viewpoint, and right-wingers from the corporatocracy viewpoint. Having a viewpoint on environmental issues, such as your view that we should be drilling in protected wilderness areas does not make you an environmentalist.

    You can’t just recite the rhetoric of the enemies of the environmental movement and expect to be taken seriously as an environmentalist, any more than you will be taken seriously spouting your right-wing extremist rhetoric on a liberal website.

    The crunchy-cons are an emerging new group of conservatives who are pro-environmentalists, but they are very much for the League of Conservation Voters and very much against drilling in protected areas and very much against all of the despicable right-wing legislation that has brought our planet to the brink of destruction.

  107. “Environmentalists” are destroying the environment with their zoning and the sprawl and waste it causes and their complex regulations and all the paper and toner that uses. Plus they are purposely obscuring the real issues, like the pollution caused by immigration and public schools. So I have to side with Travelah on that one too.

  108. entopticon

    Alan7… Environmentalists aren’t environmentalists if they encourage sprawl or waste. I have seen quite a bit of hypocrisy in the environmental movement, if that is what you are referring to.

    One of the central tenets of environmentalism is urban density through vertical growth. When I see environmentalists blocking vertical development out of aesthetic preferences, the hypocrisy does surprise me a bit.

    “Plus they are purposely obscuring the real issues, like the pollution caused by immigration and public schools. So I have to side with Travelah on that one too. ”

    Ummmm… yeah, the real problem has nothing to do with emissions standards for factories and vehicles, nothing to do with factory runoff into the water tables, nothing to do with profoundly wasteful packaging or poorly managed recycling infrastructure… it’s immagration and public schools. Not. That is some seriously ridiculous, xenophobic drivel.

  109. AshaKasha

    Ummmm…and nothing to do with animal agriculture or factory farms….or reading weekly magazines that are also available on the internet and require no paper to be used and then tossed away.

    I worked for Sierra Club for a while in California- and I can attest to there being a great deal of hypocrisy in the environmentalism movement. Hahaha….always love to attend an eco-rally to find that hotdogs and hamburgers highlight the menu. WTF?

    Bwaahahahahaha…never heard the phrase “pickin’ peas out of your diaper”!

    It would seem that hypocrisy, irony, and shenanigans are inevitable, so long as people are involved.

    Enough of this shoving everything conveniently upon the government- every single one of us has a hand in the destruction (and continued destruction) of our environment. No amount of doing our little duty of casting our little vote is going to wipe that away. Not saying that voting isn’t important, just saying it isn’t NEARLY enough.

    I’m not sure there can be a “well informed voter” anymore. We all see and hear what we want to and ignore the rest. And how can we expect the politicians to be any different? If we put all the power and responsibility on them, they will simply do what we all do: serve their own best interests.

  110. AshaKasha

    Heehee…Why did the chicken cross the road?

    To get to the other side, of course…as quickly and easily as possible. He abandoned caution and reason for convenience.

    See, just more proof that chickens are as smart as people…

  111. Public schools destroy the environment by exploiting childless taxpayers. Education is the personal responibility of PARENTS not childless taxpayers. The schools are creating overpopulation by enabling parents. Which is THE FUNDAMENTAL cause of pollution, and LCV is purposely suppressing that and providing band aid distractions to keep us busy.

  112. And the current example of “verticle development” to defend is PARKSIDE. What has LCV done for that verticle development????

  113. travelah

    AshaKasha, “picking peas out of your diaper” was a phrase my grandfather used when referring to the proclivities of the idle minded. It has stuck with me from those days.

    As for the informed voter, I am not sure the information level can be raised a great deal for many but being informed can help some from making unwise choices.

  114. travelah

    Well informed voters learned today that Barack Hussein Obama threw another one under the bus, albeit more discreetly than his past hurls. It seems less than a day after the press listened to Obama unfurl another “um.. er… well..er… um … I think … well … no” routine in defense of his Countrywide Financial Corp sweet deal recipient Jim Johnson, one of Obama’s key operatives in helping select the VP slot on the Democrat ticket, Johnson is out on his kiester.

    For a man who speaks change at every opportunity, it looks like slimeball inside-Washington types are his kind of people. Johnson was not only a connected guy with Countrywide but has also been a member of several corporate compensation boards accused of setting extravagant CEO packages, even coming under condemnation by the AFL-CIO, an Obama stalwart. Add this to the lack of judgment regarding his associations with convicted swindler Tony Rezko and it looks like the Democrats have put another dirty Chicago insider politician at the top of their ticket. For those trying to make ends meet here in Asheville with two jobs and hustling between them, don’t quit either one yet. The messiah is not who he pretends to be.

  115. Eli Cohen

    Well informed voters learned today that Barack Hussein Obama threw another one under the bus…Travelah, that’s what reasonable people do when they discover they’ve made a mistake. They correct it and move on. (something your kind wouldn’t understand)

    Oh by the way, just for the record, are you affiliated with or do you support in any way, the KKK or any other right wing hate group? (careful now “T” be honest, or this might backfire on you)

  116. entopticon

    Well informed voters should laugh at the desperation of travelah’s above post, as if John McCain wasn’t neck deep in corrupt lobbyists that he has been distancing himself from left and right.

    Well informed voters might be interested in the fact that John McCain graduated 894th out of 899 in his class.

    Well informed voters might also like to know that Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law.

    The current anti-intellectual right-winger in the White House has proven himself to be the worst President of the last century, if not ever. We really don’t need to make that mistake again.

  117. travelah

    Well informed voters learned today that Barack Hussein Obama threw another one under the bus…Travelah, that’s what reasonable people do when they discover they’ve made a mistake. They correct it and move on. (something your kind wouldn’t understand)

    Is Barack Hussein Obama capable of learning from his constant string of mistakes or does it matter as long as he doesn’t get caught in another one? Obviously he lied to the press the day before he sacked Johnson. There is still the matter of the remaining slimeball on his VP vetting team who was a principle in securing a pardon, for personal advantage, of a fugitive swindler. For somebody advocating change at every curl of his lips, it looks like the poor gullible young folk have latched onto a cheezy character or at least one heavily involved with such. Well informed voters want to know.

  118. travelah

    Well informed voters might be interested in the fact that John McCain graduated 894th out of 899 in his class.

    Those same well informed voters also know that John McCain, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy (far more rigorous than Obama’s soft Harvard experience), was an admitted party animal in 1958 who went on to have a distinguished and decorated career in the U.S. Navy.

    The current anti-intellectual right-winger in the White House has proven himself to be the worst President of the last century, if not ever. We really don’t need to make that mistake again.

    I am not sure how an Ivy League grad could be considered to be an anti-intellectual except in the feeble imaginations of those looking to slander anybody who opposes their agendas.

  119. donny

    Tsays-“I am not sure how an Ivy League grad could be considered to be an anti-intellectual except in the feeble imaginations of those looking to slander anybody who opposes their agendas.”

    So you consider Bush an “intellectual” then?

  120. Dionysis

    The well-informed voter sees Obama picking up, very quickly, Hillary supporters:

    “According to Gallup, in its surveys covering June 5-9, Obama was supported by 51 percent of women voters compared to 38 percent for McCain…
    “Indeed, his current 13-point advantage over McCain is essentially the same advantage that Clinton held over McCain throughout her active candidacy.”
    Among male voters Obama also picked up ground on McCain.”
    http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_women_voters_head_to_Obama_after_06112008.html

    The well informed voter knows that McCain can’t even count on GOP support:
    “At least 14 Republican members of Congress have refused to endorse or publicly support Sen. John McCain for president, and more than a dozen others declined to answer whether they back the Arizona senator.
    Many of the recalcitrant GOP members declined to detail their reasons for withholding support, but Rep. John Peterson (R-Pa.) expressed major concerns about McCain’s energy policies and Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) cited the Iraq war.”
    http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/new-gang-of-14-wont-back-mccain-2008-06-11.html

    The well informed voter knows that a vote for McCain is a vote against every woman’s initiative of recent times, and vows to overturn Roe v. Wade:
    “McCain has voted consistently against women’s health, and he supports overturning the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade. These positions will make it difficult for him to win over moderate pro-choice voters in the general election.”
    http://www.ppaction.org/ppvotes/08_antichoicemccain.html

    The well informed voter knows that the right—wing smear machine is now targeting Michelle Obama:
    “http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-michelle11-2008jun11,0,3978235.story?page=1

  121. entopticon

    That’s pretty hilarious travelah. You have many times used the fact that I am an ivy league grad to disparage both me and ivy league universities. Suddenly you are reborn and ivy league universities aren’t the work of the devil anymore. Just too funny.

    George Bush was a legacy C student that wasn’t even remotely qualified to be attending an ivy league university and he certainly didn’t even come close to excelling there.

    It is not uncommon for people with straight A’s their whole life to be turned down from ivy league universities. There is no question that George Bush got in because of his dad.

    Not only did Obama excell to the point of graduating magna cum laude, he was made president of the most prestigious law journal in the nation.

    After that he could have easily walked into countless half-a-million dollar a year positions at prestigious law firms, but he chose to go back to Chicago to work with underprivileged people for next to nothing. So much for your bs about elitism.

    I seriously doubt that even George Bush would consider himself an intellectual, so for you to make that argument is beyond funny.

  122. Eli Cohen

    Travelah: Oh by the way, just for the record, are you affiliated with or do you support in any way, the KKK or any other right wing hate group? (careful now “T” be honest, or this might backfire on you) A SIMPLE YES OR NO WILL DO!

  123. I think I’m going to vote for whoever is behind in the latest polls. That way whoever wins will have less mandate and hopefully the country will stay divided enough to maximixe the chance of secession. I’ll need to vote opposite party for congress as well. That way I can divide and conquer the politicians like with the NC Auditor.
    Well informed voters play the polls. Maybe we can divide the government enough to shut it down like in 93?!

  124. Eli Cohen

    Travelah…….For the record, are you affiliated with or do you support in any way, the KKK or any other right wing hate group? (careful now “T” be honest, or this might backfire on you) I’ll assume that your lack of response is an affirmative.

  125. travelah

    Big E, for the record, the answer to your question is no however if you really would like to have a Klan membership list, you might want to contact the Democrat Party’s esteemed senior member in the U.S. Senate, Robert Byrd.

    I seriously doubt that even George Bush would consider himself an intellectual, so for you to make that argument is beyond funny.

    The charge was that he is an anti-intellectual rather than being noted as an intellectual.

    After that he could have easily walked into countless half-a-million dollar a year positions at prestigious law firms, but he chose to go back to Chicago to work with underprivileged people for next to nothing. So much for your bs about elitism.

    Obama’s “work” was as an activist for the radical leftist organization ACORN

  126. Dionysis

    Hey triple t, you have to dig pretty far back in history to offer this latest bit of nonsense, don’t ya?

    “During this campaign (in 1952), “Byrd went on the radio to acknowledge that he belonged to the Klan from ‘mid-1942 to early 1943,’ according to newspaper accounts. He explained that he had joined ‘because it offered excitement and because it was strongly opposed to communism.'”

    Byrd has often referred to his Klan membership as a mistake of his youth. As recently as 1997, he told an interviewer he’d encourage young people to become involved in politics, but with this warning: “Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don’t get that albatross around your neck. Once you’ve made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena.”

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_C._Byrd

  127. entopticon

    travelah, you are astonishingly, shamefully deceitful.

    After law school, Obama worked on voter registration drives. After that he worked as an associate attorney for Miner Barnhill and Galland, primarily representing community organizers, discrimination claims, and voting rights cases.

    During his time with that firm, one of the many cases he represented was for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) that forced the state of Illinois to implement the Motor Voter Act.

    For you to disparage the fact that he chose to work with community organizations for very little money instead of the guaranteed huge sums he could have made right out of law school is beyond contemptible.

    During that time, Obama also taught constitutional law at one of the most prestigious law schools in the country. The day George Bush teaches constitutional law at a prestigious university is the day that pigs fly.

    It is also ridiculous that you would single out Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, who was a kkk member in the early 1940’s, when the kkk’s membership is essentially 100% Republican. It’s particularly ironic since Byrd has a perfect voting score from the NAACP.

  128. William P Miller

    Big e, I’ve got a question for you. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party? Answer yes or not. Careful, don’t lie now or this may backfire on you. -:)

  129. donnytherealsoutherner

    travelah,

    I’ll ask again (i notice you often leave direct questions unanswered).

    Do you think of Bush as an ‘intellectual’, as you imply in an earlier quote?

  130. travelah

    donny, I answer questions as I see fit to do so. With regard to your question, I do not view George Bush as an “intellectual” in the same manner as I do not regard you as an “intellectual”. He is on the other hand a very intelligent man. In fact his intellect is keen enough to have caused you and your fellows to vastly underestimate him and he was elected to two terms each as Texas Governor and President of the U.S. Most leftist-liberals dismiss his “downhome folksy” demeanor as a reflection of his intellect. The man has outfoxed opponents in four significant elections and common liberal “wisdom deems that to be the result of an “idiot”. So much for liberal wisdom.

  131. travelah

    For one seeking excitement, the senior Senate Democrat statesman had the following to say regarding his “excitement”.

    “I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side… Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds” … in a letter written to Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo in 1945.

    Byrd did more than just join for excitement. He became a well regarded leader in the Klan holding the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops.

    The point is when a leftist-liberal wants to slander one who does not agree with his worldview, he should look in his own kitchen first.

    As well, don’t forget Mr. Byrd’s recent statements that provide a glimpse into his “reformed” self… “There are white n*****s. I’ve seen a lot of white n*****s in my time. I’m going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I’d just as soon quit talking about it so much.” If George Bush had uttered those words, the rabid left might have stormed the White House walls with pitch forks…. Well informed voters can see right through the hypocrisy screened by the leftist-liberals when their own are caught up in their own biases.

    (I edited the word because it is offensive to a lot of people unless you are Robert Byrd or one who thinks as he does)

  132. entopticon

    You have mean convinced travelah. What a great argument; One current Democratic Senator from W Virginia was in the KKK in the early 1940’s so liberals are all racists, despite the fact that you spout KKK rhetoric verbatim, all day long. Despite the fact that virtually all KKK members are Republicans.

    Since the dissolution of the dixiecrats, there haven’t been right-wing, racist Democrats. That is solely your domain travelah.

    Yopu said: “He became a well regarded leader in the Klan holding the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops.”

    Ahhhhhhhhh…… Now I see the problem. You feel he’s stepping on your turf. Don’t worry, you will always be the the most despicable bigot around, your Exalted Cyclops.

    Barack Obama worked with a progressive community group called ACORN. Ooooooooh, spooky spooky. Raaaaaadicals. Oh noooooo! The raaaaadicals are coming to force travelah into Marxist homosexual bondage. Sooooooo spoooooooky.

    Quick travelah… put on your tinfoil hat to block the gay black Marxist mind control radio waves. Hurrrrrrry travelah, before it’s tooooo late and you become a gay black-seperatist Marxist raaaaaadical just like Obama! Sooooo spooooooky.

  133. travelah

    Well informed voters should be able to pick up on the contrived racial harmony of Mrs. Obama from this blurb out of the student newspaper at Carnegie Mellon relating a particular curiosity during Michelle Obama’s visit there back in early April.

    “I’ve been here since 11 a.m. setting up and it’s been amazing. It feels like [Barack] Obama is coming,” said sophomore social and decision sciences major Rotimi Abimbola, a leader of Students for Obama who had only a few days to coordinate the event.

    While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another,

    “I didn’t know they would say, ‘We need a white person here,’?” said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. “I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright.”

    That kind of puts a new perspective on the value of white people to Michelle Obama. Perhaps her 20 years at Rev Wrights “house of God” is still ingrained in her conscience.

    http://www.thetartan.org/2008/4/7/news/obama

  134. travelah

    entop, I am guessing you do not know a single person who is a Klanman and that would explain your incredibly naive perception of what constitutes Klan rhetoric.

  135. entopticon

    I know, I know, some of your best friends are Klansmen, travelah. I’m just soooo unhip to the latest Klan rhetoric, but don’t worry, we all know you are down with your KKK brethren.

    Actually travelah, I’ve had more run-ins with Klan members than I care to, but no, I don’t know any of your folks personally, nor would I.

    As I’m sure you know there are countless Klan sites on the web, and it is no coincidence that their rhetoric is virtually identical to yours. The “new Klan” is particularly funny because they try to sell the idea that they aren’t racists, they are just a white heritage appreciation society. I’m sure you would fit right in.

    It is really, really, really funny that you think it is news that staff chooses the people that will be standing behind the speakers based on ethnic, age, and gender demographics. Do you really think McCain has that many black people proportionately supporting him? You are a never ending barrel of laughs.

    Michelle Obama is coming to get you travelah. She is going to perform sacred Muslim voodoo rituals on you while gay black liberationist Marxists force you to make out with your Klan friends while performing terrorist fist jabs. And it is all Obama’s fault.

  136. Eli Cohen

    Big e, I’ve got a question for you. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party? Answer yes or not. Careful, don’t lie now or this may backfire on you. -:)

    Yes, willie p., I “was” a member of a communist party (RCP) in the late 70’s. Remember when five Communists, who were trying to organize textile workers, were gunned down in an attack by the Ku Klux Klan. “88 seconds in Greensboro” Does that ring a bell for you? I bet you were singing “oh happy day” you ignorant, uneducated, hate mongering coward. And yes travelah, I’ve met some kukers and you sir sound just like one. Pity you don’t have the guts to admit it. It must be hot under that hood. And by the way willie p., only an idiot would think that being a communist is as bad as being a klansman.

  137. travelah

    It is really, really, really funny that you think it is news that staff chooses the people that will be standing behind the speakers based on ethnic, age, and gender demographics. Do you really think McCain has that many black people proportionately supporting him? You are a never ending barrel of laughs.

    This practice is indeed a longstanding one however the Obama candidacy has been running on the promise of transparency and change. It seems it is instead another fraudulent, staged and predictable candidacy more interested in fooling the people.

    And by the way willie p., only an idiot would think that being a communist is as bad as being a klansman.

    In many respects they are very much the same thing. Both are pathological liars. Both wish harm upon those who think differently. The communists have an edge up over the Klan in the numbers of people murdered by them.

  138. DR.ANTINEOCONUS

    This blog is indicative of the mentality of hapless U.S. citizens, who are caught up in a socially engineered construct called the dialectic.

    Part of the dialectic is to set up a false right left pyridine, in order to distract the dumb masses into believing that a staged ideological and political struggle, between differing factions is occurring, between political parties and that they, the dumbed down unwashed, have the power, through their joke vote, to affect change.

    Millions of moron U.S. citizens, during the last 70 years, go to the polls and pull levers based upon everything from whether the candidate has a D or R in front of the name, or how good he looks in an Armani suit. 53%, of this registered moron contingent, actually do not even know who the vice – president of the U.S is. That would be Darth Vadar

    The political process, mocks the intelligence of the great unwashed, making elections into some grand sporting event, that polarizes stupid people behind their favorite team, albeit Dumdopublican Republicrat, or better yet, worldwide wrestling, scripted for the benefit of the sheep people, while the real events that shape the mundane lives of U.S.slaves are decided by bankers in smoke filled rooms, who write the scripts the sheep people believe.

    What has the well-informed voter ever done in this country, except cast votes for professional actors, while the socialist fascist state grows and tightness the noose around the moron general public? Taxs increase, government control increases and the idiot general public blames it on the actors and parites on the political stage.

    The dialectic is simply a contrived illusion, to give the masses the impression, they have control over the political car, when they are little more than children, that sit behind the wheel, with the car parked, the ignition off, turning a wheel believing they are steering something.

    Travelah would be the best example of this, poor old boy does not have a clue, a complete knave. This is your brain on Rush

  139. entopticon

    travelah, your hypocrisy is absolutely astounding. It’s fine when McCain does it, but it’s not ok when Obama does it? You are just too funny. Obama’ campaign never claimed that they didn’t choose the people to stand behind speakers, just as McCain did not.

    For a story with actual teeth, as opposed to your desperate convolutions, check out the breaking news: McCain Stocks Fox News Town Hall With Supporters:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/12/mccain-stacks-fox-news-to_n_106881.html

    Turns out McCain’s phony, staged town hall meetings were actually stacked with McCain Republicans. Dishonesty at its ugly worst. Right up your alley.

    Give your Klan buddies a big, wet, sloppy kiss for me travelah.

  140. travelah

    travelah, your hypocrisy is absolutely astounding. It’s fine when McCain does it, but it’s not ok when Obama does it? You are just too funny. Obama’ campaign never claimed that they didn’t choose the people to stand behind speakers, just as McCain did not.

    I was not aware that McCain was trying to place blacks in the stands behind him in order to give the appearance of checkerboard diversity. I’m trying to picture the McCain handlers saying “we need more black people in the shoot .. you there, Japanese woman, make way for a black person … don’t worry it will look real pretty.”. I do not see it but we sure saw it with the Michelle Obama handlers.

  141. travelah

    There is a new website to counter the bigoted smears made by shameful people such as travelah against Barack Obama:
    http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/

    Having Obama attemtp to refute reports regarding himself doesn’t carry a lot of weight. In fact, this site is one of the cheesiest piles of crap I have seen in some time. Right out of the gate, there is a bold lie at the start.

    Michelle Obama Says “Whitey” On a Tape
    LIE: Rush Limbaugh says a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word “whitey” from the pulpit of Trinity United

    Limbaugh was explaining what another blogger claimed and was not making any claims of the truthfulness of this disputed tape.

    Basically, the site is not a reliable source of truth as it amounts to nothing but campaign rhetoric and denials with no real evidence.

  142. entopticon

    Seriously, who really cares what you can and can’t picture. If you think all of those black people behind McCain at most of his speaking events weren’t placed there you have a hole in your head.

    Your example defending Rush Limbaugh is one of your all-time classics! Limbaugh was explaining what a blogger (!?!) said so he bears no responsibility for disseminating that lie?!? I have heard some ridiculous nonsense from you, but that is right up there with the funniest rationalizations ever.

    The site only provides evidence. The kkk email spam fallacies that you spread here everyday are far, far, far from being facts. Your delusional idiocy about Obama being a black separatist Islamic mole is literally considered to be a joke by virtually every serious political analyst.

  143. I want to be better informed! Is ACORN for zoning? If they are against bigbox stores then I guess they must be, Right?
    zoning raises rents! If Obama is for ACORN and ACORN is for zoning then that would make me against Obama! Let’s try googleing “ACORN zoning”

  144. http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=8308

    http://www.housinghereandnow.org/downloads/CFIZ%20Press%20Statement%201-19-05%20FINAL.doc

    Looks like ACORN is for “inclusionary” zoning, which still raises rents unless it exempts inclusionary developments from ALL other zoning, which it never has to my knowledge. It is not a worthwhile excuse for zoning in terms of raising rents. So yes, the ACORN connection makes me think far less of Obama, thank you Travelah for informing me of Obama’s connection to zoners at ACORN.

  145. travelah

    Your example defending Rush Limbaugh is one of your all-time classics! Limbaugh was explaining what a blogger (!?!) said so he bears no responsibility for disseminating that lie?!? I have heard some ridiculous nonsense from you, but that is right up there with the funniest rationalizations ever

    Limbaugh was not disseminating the allegation. He was discussing the allegation and explaining why he did NOT run with it. A couple of the media outlets took a snipet of his discussion and falsely charged him with spreading this allegation. In other words, like Obama did on his new webpag, they flat out lied about Limbaugh.

    As for McCain’s backdrop, you don’t have any evidence of any staging. We do have evidence of Obama’s racial staging.

  146. travelah

    Your delusional idiocy about Obama being a black separatist Islamic mole is literally considered to be a joke by virtually every serious political analyst.

    Nobody I know, including myself, has suggested any such thing as stated here. Instead, Obama spent 20 years being mentored by a leftist, black nationalist and was raised as a youth in a Muslim envirionment. It is his unwillingness to be honest regarding his background that is cause for concern.

  147. entopticon

    travelah you are the silliest smearer on the planet. Go on, keep defending Rush Limbaugh with your hilariously convoluted rationalization. The point is that it was never true and Rush Limbaugh should be ashamed for disseminating fake, bigoted information to his millions of dittohead fools like you.

    As for the people standing behind McCain being chosen for demographic reasons, there have been like 5 stories about that over the course of this election so far so go crawl back under your rock.

    You dind’t address the story that offered SOLID PROOF that McCain was stocking his phony town hall meetings with his supporters. Even FOX News had to bust him on that. Too funny.

  148. entopticon

    HUGE, ENORMOUS LIE NUMBER ONE:

    Reverend Wright is not a black nationalist. He has never been a black nationalist. Not only has he never been a black nationalist, he argued against black nationalism with vigor for his entire career.

    Obama was NOT raised as a MUSLIM you lying, bigoted, sack of everything but the peas. The proof is absolutely overwhelming and there is NO legitimate news source that claims otherwise.

    You want him to admit he was a MUslim even though he was never a Muslim for a single day in his life. Go crawl back under your rock with your kkk buddies travelah. The only cause for concern is lying, despicable bigots like you.

  149. travelah

    Reverend Wright is not a black nationalist. He has never been a black nationalist. Not only has he never been a black nationalist, he argued against black nationalism with vigor for his entire career.

    The entire country watched Obama ditch his association with the racist, hate monger, Rev Wright. Wright, as everybody now knows, has been preaching a racist, hate filled black liberation theology for years and indoctrinating his spiritual understudy, Barack Hussein Obama, for twenty years.

    Obama was NOT raised as a MUSLIM you lying, bigoted, sack of everything but the peas.

    Obama was registered as a Muslim at two schools, one secular and the other Catholic. He attended Friday prayers. He took Koran classes according to his own biographical accounts. Those drinking leftist koolaid would like these facts to disappear but that magic trick is not likely to happen soon.

    travelah you are the silliest smearer on the planet. Go on, keep defending Rush Limbaugh with your hilariously convoluted rationalization. The point is that it was never true and Rush Limbaugh should be ashamed for disseminating fake, bigoted information to his millions of dittohead fools like you.

    You do not know if it is true or not. As for Limbaugh’s comments, I listened to them and you did not (and I do not mean the short snipet).

  150. travelah

    Well informed voters will miss Tim Russert who passed away this afternoon. He made “Meet The Press” worth watching again and will be missed by many of us.

  151. entopticon

    Reverend Wright was vehemently against black nationalism for his entire and that is a well documented fact. He wwas not always the most politically correct guy in the world but compared to YOUR despicably racist bigotry he was a saint.

    Obama was never a Muslim for a single day in his life. If he was it would still be a total nonissue, but even if he had been you would still be a despicable bigot and a shameful liar.

    No legitimate news source backs you up in the least. Every single fact checking organization from factcheck.org, to the Washington Post, to 60 minutes says the exact same thing.

    You really are going to burn in hell travelah. As for Rush LImbaugh and your kkk buddies, they will all be right there with you.

  152. travelah

    … but compared to YOUR despicably racist bigotry he was a saint …
    …but even if he had been you would still be a despicable bigot and a shameful liar….
    …Go crawl back under your rock with your kkk buddies travelah. The only cause for concern is lying, despicable bigots like you….
    …travelah you are the silliest smearer on the planet….
    …so go crawl back under your rock….
    …Don’t worry, you will always be the the most despicable bigot around, your Exalted Cyclops….
    …You and your conservative, anti-science, anti-humanist, profit before people, (and, did I say lying?) ratbags can crawl back in your holes and fester like the open sores on humanity that you are….
    …Obsess on your racist lies about Obama’s heritage all you want travelah, you despicable bigot…..

    LOL

    Well informed voters want to know if it is a unique phenomenon to Asheville that it’s leftist-liberal internet jockeys suffer from some form of mental illness or is this a wide spread problem among the Obamunnists in general?

  153. Eli Cohen

    Some things are worth saying twice…

    …You and your conservative, anti-science, anti-humanist, profit before people, (and, did I say lying?) ratbags can crawl back in your holes and fester like the open sores on humanity that you are….

    Have a nice day!

  154. travelah

    …You and your conservative, anti-science, anti-humanist, profit before people, (and, did I say lying?) ratbags can crawl back in your holes and fester like the open sores on humanity that you are….

    Have a nice day!

    … and therein lies the extant whole of leftist-liberal discourse. … Some thoughts to ponder …

    “And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” (Mr 7:20-23 AV)

    Have a nice day, Big E.

  155. entopticon

    Biblical quotes are fun!

    “Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!”
    Psalm 137.9

    There are quotes for every occasion since the majority of the book is devoid of continuity or ethics.

    Whenever I am looking for solid advice on the best way to beat a slave to death or how to properly sacrifice an ox, it’s always the first book I turn to, right after Special Occasions: The Best of Martha Stewart Living, which is always a reliable resource for such pressing questions as well.

  156. entopticon

    travelah the ignorant bigot asked: “Well informed voters want to know if it is a unique phenomenon to Asheville that it’s leftist-liberal internet jockeys suffer from some form of mental illness or is this a wide spread problem among the Obamunnists in general?”

    Leftist Obamunists blah-blah, Muslim Muslim Muslim, blah-blah-blah, gay people are hiding in your Cheerios, blah-blah Marxist Marxist Marxist, blah-blah-blah-Michellle Obama is unAmerican and she eats babies, blah-blah-blah leftists don’t like assault rifles enough, Red scare makes you poo your pants a little, blah-blah blah lesbians are the instrument of the devil, blah blah blah, black people are fine as long as they just act white, blah blah pledge of allegiance flag pin kaopectate blah-blah-blah, yada-yad-yada….

    travelah, it is absolutely hilarious that you expect to be taken seriously after spouting your ridiculously bigoted, absurdly ignorant drivel. Sorry travelah, although any person with an even vaguely rational or intelligent argument may deserve considered discourse, you do not come anywhere even remotely close to meeting that standard.

    The funny thing is, you don’t even know that you are just forwarding fabrications from spam emails that white supremacist groups have been disseminating half the time. They count on the fact that there are actually people that are ridiculously ignorant and shamefully bigoted enough to buy into such asinine bs.

    No travelah, you don’t deserve to be taken seriously. Not even close. If you stop spreadin idiotic, bigoted rumors about Obama being a Muslim, communist, etc, etc etc, you may earn that right, but until then you deserve nothing mere than derision and mockery.

  157. travelah

    entop, you are a poor pretender to biblical scholarship. The Persians were indeed very happy at their overthrow of Babylon …

    I have no expectations of seriousness on the part of leftist-liberal internet jockeys. My more serious endeavors are among literate and well mannered intellectuals. However, let that not spoil your funnies. Carry on!

  158. travelah

    Well informed voters might find yesterdays posting on the Spectator regarding the dishonesty of Obama and his Obammunist rabble very interesting. The author sums up the reasonable objections that informed observers have with this deceptive candidate …

    First, it is quite clear that any questioning at all of Obama’s background is entirely off-limits. Next, the posters fail totally to grasp that the real point isn’t what faith he professed or was brought up in as a child – it is the fact that he has not told the truth about his early background. Then, some even compare such questioning with the ‘truthers’ who allege that 9/11 was perpetrated by a conspiracy between America and Israel. They thus demonstrate that they cannot tell the difference between rationality and lunacy, evidence and fantasy, failing to grasp that the sole reason for the questions about Obama is the many discrepancies in the accounts of his early life — including his own accounts — plus his many questionable associations.

    Melanie Phillips has written an intriguing look at the insanity around those who rail at anybody who questions this “out of nowhere” candidate for the Presidency of the U.S. It is worth a read.

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/771896/princess-obama-derangement-syndrome.thtml

  159. travelah

    More interesting news for the well informed voters that has been overlooked for some time is Obama’s Tony Rezko connections. Now of course the Obammunists will rail that “there isn’t even a shred of evidence against him, you lying piece of xyz”, but the Chicago Sun-Times has written quite otherwise. It seems Obama has lied about the amount of contributions from Rezko and actually received far more than he has acknowledged publicly. The short article is here:
    http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/771896/princess-obama-derangement-syndrome.thtml

    There is also a pdf file listing the connections of Obama’s donors to the recently convicted criminal. I think well informed voters should know just how sleazy the Chicago politician really is, don’t you?
    http://media1.suntimes.com/multimedia/obama.pdf_20070617_21_13_43_1648.imageContent

  160. entopticon

    travelah you are SO right. Nothing gets the blood pumping in the morning or puts a smile on your face like smashing some children’s skulls open on the rocks. The bible is such a handy guide.

    “Literate and well-mannered intellectuals”? Sorry travelah, they don’t have them at bible college, but good luck with that.

    You can quote deranged right-wing extremist wack jobs like melanie Philips, who is widely considered a complete joke for her despicably sick Islamophobia, till you turn blue in the face, but it won’t change the fact that EVERY SINGLE fact checking organization is overwhelmingly against you and idiotic bigots such as Melanie Philips.

    Of course, when she isn’t bashing Muslims, which is how she spends most of her time, Philips is ranting about how she doesn’t believe in global warming or evolution, so she is not exactly the sharpest crayon in the box.

    She is such an extremely bigoted nutjob that her despicably titled book Londonistan spends it’s time trashing multiculturalism and cultural relativity; the bedrocks of cultural anthropology. The day legitimate intellectuals start taking an absurdly bigoted right-wing extremist nutjob like her seriously will be a very dark day indeed. Luckily, we are nowhere close to that day.

    As far as the Rezko thing goes, you sure do like to beat a dead horse. It has been long over since Obama sat down with 3 dozen Chicago Tribune Journalists and fleshed out every last bit of the Rezko nonstory. You can read about that at: Chicago Tribune: Obama Satisfied All Doubts About Rezko:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/16/chicago-tribune-obama-sa_n_91742.html

    Really, if all you have to go on is your ridiculously asinine, absurdly bigoted Muslim conspiracy theories and Rezko stories that have completely vindicated him time and again, you and your idotic right-wing extremist friends are in deep, deep, deep doodoo.

    It is pretty darned funny for someone who is going to vote for one of the Keating Five, the Senators who tried to cover up the biggest of the S&L;scandals, to be hurling charges of sleaziness.

    Among other things, McCain took his family on at least 9 trips on Keating’s private jet, three of which were to Keating’s private retreat in the Bahamas. McCain didn’t disclose the trips (as he was required to under House rules) until the scandal broke in 1989.

    It is beyond funny that you constantly question the character of Obama, a solid family man, when you are supporting an admitted adulterer.

    It is also beyond funny that you attack the character of Michelle Obama, when McCain’s wife is the one was was caught stealing narcotics from a charity.

    It really is as if the part of a normal person that prevents them from glaring hypocrisy is completely snipped in you. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that considering the fact that you seriously believe there is such a thing as a conservative Christian despite the paradoxical impossibility of such a ludicrous contradiction in terms.

    There is a time honored tradition called dialectical theism, where meditation on paradox is used to ponder the sublime unknowability of the mind of God, which is a wonderful tradition. Trying to instantiate paradox through radical contradictions such as the ridiculous notion of a right-wing Christian isn’t an exercise in greater understanding, it is an exercise in foolish hypocrisy.

  161. entopticon

    By the way travelah, I went to a Methodist high school where we had to take courses on religion and attend services. I was certainly not a Methodist and neither were the dozens of Jewish kids that went there, although according to your pitiful logic the fact that they went to that school makes the Jewish kids Methodists.

    It is as hilarious as it is pathetic that you claim that Obama is a Muslim because he went to a predominantly Islamic school when he was 6 years old! You really are pathetic. The school has always been predominantly Islamic with many Christians and Buddhists as well.

    As opposed to the root cause of the lies, which was an Insight magazine story that has been completely debunked as total nonsense, CNN spent a great deal of time and money flying reporters all the way to the school in Indonesia to fully vet the story, which left absolutely no doubt that the school is not anything like an Islamic madrassa whatsoever.

    You can see the CNN story that debunks the asinine and bigoted fabrications that right-wing extremist commentators have been basing their ridiculous smears on here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pMgsbMcpOE

    Your lies really are tiresome, and your obsession with smearing Obama says a whole lot about your shamefully severe bigotry and ignorance.

  162. William P Miller

    Lord have mercy, will Mr e and Big e ever stop sending these hateful missives from their bridge apartment? Dudes, go get a useful job. OK? Asheville could use more help and less whining. Get a grip dudes. The well-informed voter will know the lever to pull. It will be McCain/Clinton(Hillary)!

  163. travelah

    entop, it seems EVERYBODY outside your myopic worldview is a “nut job”.

  164. travelah

    There is a time honored tradition called dialectical theism, where meditation on paradox is used to ponder the sublime unknowability of the mind of God, which is a wonderful tradition. Trying to instantiate paradox through radical contradictions such as the ridiculous notion of a right-wing Christian isn’t an exercise in greater understanding, it is an exercise in foolish hypocrisy.

    entop, you might impress a couple of your friends on-line here (perhaps Dionysis in particular for such musings are best served while fully intoxicated)in tossing out the philosophical concept of panentheism but speaking as a theological apologist versed in these matters, I can clearly state you are “full of doo clear to your eyeballs”. Krause’s creation is a pagan mixture of monotheism and pantheism best served up to those entertained by Emerson’s concept of the oversoul or those steeped in gnosticism. As you have noted yourself as “studying” in an Unitarian environment, I am sure this would have been where you picked up Hartshorne’s heretical notions.

    You are small potatoes, entop, and out of your league in these matters. You should stick to your vitriolic political hash.

  165. William P Miller

    Big e: “…You and your conservative, anti-science, anti-humanist, profit before people, (and, did I say lying?) ratbags can crawl back in your holes and fester like the open sores on humanity that you are….Have a nice day!”

    Lordy Big e. Another ray of sunshine brought by you to this forum? It is you good chum who lives in a rathole, under a bridge I may add, with your roomy Mr e. Y’all hate the South and our conservativism so much….so why are you here? Go back to Nu Yawk.

  166. travelah

    Ralph, given the level of nonsense presented at times, I think you are right with regard to this microcosm.

  167. Eli Cohen

    So travelah, about that question I asked you…I thought it appropriate that you answer it, not your alter-ego willie p. So, are you, or have you ever been affiliated with any right wing groups such as the kkk or john birch society? (last chance to come clean)

  168. Eli Cohen

    The dirt on McCain is beginning to come to light…McCain has said repeatedly that he was afforded no special treatment while in the “Hanoi Hilton”. Yet when he was first interviewed by the North Vietnamese he is shown at a hospital reserved for Vietnamese military and he was seen by Soviet Surgeons. He was drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while being interviewed. This was a far cry from the way the rest of the POWs were treated. This guy rolled over on his fellow soldiers immediately!

    His wife at the time, was a member of the National League of Families and she fought to make sure that John McCain came home. He rewarded this loyalty by divorcing her after his return. After many affairs (one of which was rumored to be a brief homosexual relationship)

    He was shot down October 26, 1967, and by November 9, 1967 he was giving interviews to foreign correspondents, providing information on his prior command, casualties and tactics, in direct violation of the Code of Conduct. (The U.S. military Code of Conduct is the definitive code specifying the responsibilities of American military personnel while in combat or captivity. Article V of the Code is very specific in ordering U.S. military personnel to avoid answering questions to the utmost of their ability and to make no oral or written statements disloyal to the United States and its allies, or harmful to their cause. Any willful violation of the Code is considered collaborating with the enemy.)

    The Communist Vietnamese erected a bust of John McCain beside the lake where he was shot down.
    In the interview that he gave on November 9, 1967 to VNA International, he claims when he bailed out and landed in the lake, that locals pulled him out and took him to the hospital. Yet in the U.S. News and World Report – May 14, 1973. McCain is quoted as saying “I think it was on the fourth day (after being shot down) that two guards came in, instead of one. One of them pulled back the blanket to show the other guard my injury. I looked at my knee. It was about the size of a football . . . when I saw it, I said to the guard, Ok, get the officer’…an officer came in after a few minutes. It was the man that we came to know very well as ‘The Bug’. He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends that we had to deal with. I said, Ok, I’ll give you military information.
    While testifying before the Senate Select Committee, the very man McCain claims was responsible for his own torture, his interrogator, “The Bug” was appearing. When the moment of confrontation came, McCain rose from his seat, walked from the podium to the floor and stood face to face with the man who was responsible for torturing him and countless other Prisoners of War…McCain then grabbed the man and embraced him!

    He has been a consistent advocate of lenient treatment of Vietnam.

    While a member of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs (1991-1993) this turncoat referred to POW/MIA Family Members and POW/MIA Activists as whiners, vultures and the lunatic fringe.

    Although the Senate Select Committee concluded that we left men behind, McCain crossed party lines to help lift the embargo and normalize relations with Vietnam. “It’s very important for us to recognize that the war is over, … In my view, an improvement in relations between our two countries does a whole of lot things from a practical standpoint, but it also, from a spiritual standpoint indicates that we are ready to close that chapter,” McCain said. (Many POWs and families of MIAs would strongly disagree that is time to close this chapter! Improving relations with Vietnam stood to benefit the McCain’s family as they hold a large interest in the Budweiser Corporation. Surprise, surprise Bud was among the first large U.S. Corporations to enter Vietnam after relations were normalized.)

    He ignored a letter from former POW, Capt. Eugene “Red” McDaniel, co-signed by 50 former POWs which asked that the embargo not be lifted and not to normalize relations and still McCain would not be swayed.

    When the Missing Service Personnel Act of 1996 came on the Senate Floor for debate, Senator McCain called this bill “un-necessary” and “burdensome” even though the MSPA was sponsored by the then majority leader and the man who had considered asking John McCain to run with him, Sen. Bob Dole.

    McCain managed to get the MSPA amended by removing criminal liability and several articles that were important to POW/MIA Family members.

    McCain voted against campaign-finance reform in 1987/1988.. and didn’t support the concept until 1990, just after the Keating story broke.

    Until McCain began thinking about running for national office he was consistently anti-gay (he even spoke at a fundraiser for Oregon’s anti-gay rights initiative) Now he says they are “not inclusive enough”.

    Keating Five Scandal
    McCain received more than $112,000 in campaign contributions from one Charles Keating (including $54,000 for his Senate campaign). Between 1984 and 1986 McCain and family had vacationed at Keating’s home in the Bahamas. (Keating was a corrupt owner of a savings-and-loan empire that ended up costing taxpayers $3 billion.) For these contributions Keating hoped (expected) McCain and four other senators – John Glenn, Dennis DeConcini, Alan Cranston, Donald Riegle, would protect him from federal banking regulators. After a 14 month investigation by the Ethics Committee all McCain received was a slap on the wrist for using “poor judgment”!

    McCain’s Tasteless Joke
    “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
    Because her father is Janet Reno.”

    McCain’s two-liner gives us some insight into what he considers funny (lesbianism, a young woman’s physical looks), especially since this was delivered to a partisan Republican crowd. Remember, this is the same party that champions pro-family values.

    That McCain had made this tasteless joke was reported in major newspapers, so was the vain attempt by his press secretary to initially deny that McCain had done anything wrong. But in several major newspapers, the joke itself was kept a secret. When McCain subsequently apologized to President Clinton, the Washington Post, noted the apology but said the joke “was too vicious to print.” Is this the man you want to run the country? A dirty turncoat communist spy?

  169. Eli Cohen

    John McCain: The Manchurian Candidate

    The FBI has a program to monitor the activities of returned prisoners of war from Indochina. That FBI investigation is based on historical knowledge which concluded that some American POWs had been “turned” into agents of the communist.

    “Turning” a prisoner of war is not necessarily the prisoner being convinced or “re-educated” by his captors to change his beliefs or politics. The process can involve the use of a variety of means, both subtle and brutal, elaborately contrived to manipulate an otherwise patriotic U.S. prisoner’s situation or environment to a point where he is convinced that he must cooperate with his captors in order to remain alive.

    One method which had been used successfully by the KGB for their clandestine purposes was the use of threats of exposing embarrassing behavior, particularly any illicit sexual behavior.
    For example, if a subject, in this case a POW, became involved in a homosexual situation and his captors found out about it, his captors would most certainly make a record of the homosexual behavior. Later an interrogator would use that record as blackmail to extort intelligence information from anyone involved.

  170. Eli Cohen

    And…just to keep you informed, “McCain has failed to mention in public what he has confided to another U.S. prisoner privately, that since the Vietnamese felt they had in their hands such a “special prisoner”, a propaganda bonanza, a Soviet surgeon was called in to treat him. Unlike his hapless brothers in arms who were left to die.

  171. Eli Cohen

    OMG, I had no idea it was this bad.

    John Mccain was a Founding Member of the Keating Five
    Back in the old days, defendants in famous trials got numbers — the Chicago Eight, the Gang of Four, the Dave Clark Five, the Daytona 500. McCain was one of the “Keating Five,” congressmen investigated on ethics charges for strenuously helping convicted racketeer Charles Keating after he gave them large campaign contributions and vacation trips.
    Charles Keating was convicted of racketeering and fraud in both state and federal court after his Lincoln Savings & Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $3.4 billion. His convictions were overturned on technicalities; for example, the federal conviction was overturned because jurors had heard about his state conviction, and his state charges because Judge Lance Ito (yes, that judge) screwed up jury instructions. Neither court cleared him, and he faces new trials in both courts.)

    Though he was not convicted of anything, McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating after Keating gave McCain at least $112,00 in contributions. In the mid-1980s, McCain made at least 9 trips on Keating’s airplanes, and 3 of those were to Keating’s luxurious retreat in the Bahamas. McCain’s wife and father-in-law also were the largest investors (at $350,000) in a Keating shopping center; the Phoenix New Times called it a “sweetheart deal.”

    Mafia ties:
    In 1995, McCain sent birthday regards, and regrets for not attending, to Joseph “Joe Bananas” Bonano, the head of the New York Bonano crime family, who had retired to Arizona. Another politician to send regrets was Governor Fife Symington, who has since been kicked out of office and convicted of 7 felonies relating to fraud and extortion.

  172. DR.ANTINEOCONUS

    Eli excellent points and authorities concerning the traitor Manchurian candidate and Bank Fraud criminal, John “THE SON CAIN “McCain.

    However, you must realize Eli, facts and history mean nothing to neocons like Travelah and Roberts, who are under mind control, from their handlers, such as the oxycontin popin creature Limbaugh and Fox news anf their governemnbt run churches.

    Let me give you an example of this virulent neocon Nazi mentality,

    Last week, the Neocon spin master, talk show host, Michael Reagan, told his listening audience, that any one who sent letters and notices to the troops, stating that 911 was an inside job, should be assassinated and that he Reagan, would pay for the bullets.

    The point here being, people like Ralph Roberts and Travelah, are not only, ideologically delusional and deceived, but impervious to facts, they are also rabid and dangerous and will deliver you up into the Babylonian court system,( ala Title 18 U.S.C. federal law and patriot acts) here in America, in which you are guilty until proven innocent.

    The fact of the matter is, the worst enemy that any real American could have now, is not the F.B.I. or Homeland insecurity, but is infact, a Grand jury comprised of 12 dumbed down U.S. citizens who believe the governments lines and lies

    We have reached a point here in Nazi America that those who have the audacity to engage in logic and question governmental lies and propaganda, will soon be jailed and killed by neocon dogs of war, here in the land of the fee and the home of the slave.

    Asking a simple question to stupid U.S. Citizens is a crime. How is it that two planes could bring down three towers? This kind of inquiry has now become an act of domestic terrorism.

    In reality, the sad fact is that those who disseminate truth and logic, have become enemies of the state, here in the land of the fee and the home of the slave.

    The son of Cain, if elected, will pick up where the Bushler has left off. Morons like Roberts and Travelah, will be only to happy to gas those, who question authority and don’t wax neocon, as they spew out and regurgitate governmental group think on blog sites like this one,like flatulent goose stepping Nazis, exposing and subjecting all those within earshot who still have reason left, to the pungent stench of their rotten insides.

  173. Why is the McCain dirt missing? shoudl I repost it? And why on earth does McCain think Chelsea Clinton is ugly?????? She beats the tar out of Julia Roberts, is he blind?

  174. bluegrassbrad

    Melanie Phillips is England’s version of a Sean Hannity or Bill O’Lielly, an extreme right-winger who dismisses facts when they don’t align with there views, and skews others so they can embrace them. She is a xenophobic bigot without question. I have business associates in London who laugh their a$$ off at her warped theories.

  175. Eli Cohen

    When are you people going to stop defending Obama and attacking McCain. McCain is nothing more than busch lite, sorry I mean bush light. If he’s elected, Roe vs. Wade is his-tor-ree. Not only that, this guy is too old for the job and just because he participated in an immoral war against the people of Vietnam does not make him a hero. This is a guy who dropped napalm on women and children for Christ’s sake. Wake up and stop being such sissies.

  176. richard

    who is for de-regulation, the liberals?

    who believes the earth is just 5000 years old, the liberals?

    who fought to keep slavery alive, the liberals?

    who continues to vote for subsidies for the oil companies, the liberals?

    under which administrations have we had record deficits?

    under which administration did we bail out the savings and loan industry?

    And now, under Bush’s deregulation, tax cuts and unjustified war, who’s bailing out the richest banks on earth?

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