The McCain, Republican Way: Less Jobs, More War

Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films brings us its latest hard-hitting film, this one driving it home about Iraq, McCain, the war machine and on, ad infinitum.

BTW, Brave New Films is also looking for assistance in helping fund their effort. I know money is tough, but for those with the wallet and the heart, check the links at the film.

The Loss of John Edwards Is The Loss of a Voice For Regular Americans

Yesterday was a very bad day for Americans who are not wealthy, don't own mega corporations, who don't have health care or job security or big political connections.

I won't pretend that I'm not bitter, sad, and very angry that Democratic presidential nominee candidate John Edwards suspended his campaign yesterday. I thought he and his wife, Elizabeth, and many fine Americans of all economic backgrounds, waged a brave and brilliant campaign that focused on something almost NO ONE else in this campaign, short of Dennis Kucinich who dropped out last week: the rising majority of Americans suffering at the bankrupting of America by Republican rule and Democrat-capitulation.

We ALL lost, regardless of your party or preferred candidate, when we let the media and the Republican party turn this race only into an Obama-Clinton slugfest, and let Edwards get pushed ever back and finally out of contention. Unlike most - virtually ALL - presidential candidates since I became eligible to vote in 1980, I really believe Edwards meant just about everything he said. And that Elizabeth, with incurable cancer, insisted he run AND participated with him, impressed the hell out of me.

As much as I can't imagine voting for ANYONE but a Democrat in November, I do not feel either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton speak for the majority of Americans. I think they, at another time, would be viewed as somewhat moderate Republicans. But, as I've said, if Republicans won't elect moderate Republicans to office, why the hell should the Democrats. All I can do is hope that we hold their feet to the fire if one of them wins Election 2008 and that they are just sounding "conservative" and ever so careful during the race, while they show less concern for millionaires and billionaires and corporations once they get to the Oval Office.

The South Carolina Democratic Debate: Who Won? Not Us

If I had to sum up my reaction to the South Carolina Democratic debate Monday night in just one sentence, I would paraphrase what contender John Edwards said, "Excuse me, there are three people in this debate, not TWO and with all this squabbling, how many kids will be able to get health care or go to college because of this meanness."

Not only did this become a Hillary-Barack slugfest with their behavior along with how debate host CNN's Wolf Blitzer handled it, but the media after the fact seemed to ignore that Edwards was even present. Most of the clips of it shown offered no glimpse, much less a soundbyte, from the former North Carolina senator.

The relatively few who DID notice Edwards was there, like Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown, noted that he came out as the soul of reason, the only one who realizes this isn't about Hillary or Barack or even himself, but a nation filled with hurting people who can no longer afford their mortgages, their health insurance, or to be guaranteed a decent education for their kids. As Newsweek's Howard Fineman pointed out with Keith, if Clinton-Obama fights like this continue for the next month, Edwards is almost guaranteed to come out ahead of both of them put together.

Finally, the media was far more focused on the arguments between the woman candidate and the black candidate, making it sound like it was just wrong. As a pacifist and as someone who rarely feels she learns much from arguing, I'd agree. However, the media ONLY looks at Clinton and Obama and the fighting, giving almost NO attention to harsh words exchanged between Republican candidates or many of the lies the GOP runners tell about the Democrats as well as their own voting/business history. Given how the media presents this stuff, how can we possibly trust their overall analysis? Hell, they didn't give Mike Huckabee this kind of heat when he came out a few times last week to declare that the U.S. Constitution must be completely rewritten to document the word and laws of His God - something that affects all of us a HELL of a lot more than whether Hillary and Barack love each other or engage in verbal smackdowns

Schizophrenic Iowa Caucus Candidate Results Math

With perhaps less than 25% of Iowa's precincts reporting in the big caucus today, NBC has already projected Mike "I put the suck in" Huckabee as the winner of the GOP race there and perhaps Barack Obama as the winner of the donkey lane. (As I type this, CBS News seems to be projecting the same). But there are some problems here, not the least of which is that 25% is a long way from 100% and that we already saw this kind of "jump the shark" math make a complete and utter mess out of the "easy Bush steal" of the 2000 Florida vote where all the networks went back and forth with who won.

Let's start with the Democrats. Though Obama is now projected as the Dem winner, the last numbers I saw actually put John Edwards ahead, followed by Obama and Clinton. Strangely enough, however, even when Edwards held a good percentage lead over the other two, NBC's and some of the other networks' pundits were making it sound like this was great for Obama and a big loss for Edwards. Uh.... huh?

Some of the same pundits were calling a vote for any Dem but Hillary an "anti-Clinton" vote. Gee, who knew that Democrats only had two choices: Hillary or NOT Hillary? They also saw the votes as broken down along specific lines: all blacks and those whites who happened not to like Hillary all voted for Obama, according to these puny pundits, while all women and those blacks who didn't like Barack handed their support to Hillary. Now this wouldn't explain how Edwards still comes out so strong, but this simplistic twit shit doesn't make much sense otherwise anyway. Earth to Pundits: not all blacks, not all women, not all "there is no such thing as evolution and mankind and the dinosaurs began to live contemporaneously with one another on Earth about 5 minutes ago" fundamentalist fruitcakes all think, act, and vote alike.

Another weird Punditry spin, this one espoused by MSNBC's Chris "I jump on board whichever ship isn't sinking quite as fast at the moment" Matthews, is that Obama is somehow more a child of Kenya than of the U.S. To hear Matthews talk, you'd think that Barack arrived in this country about 10 minutes before the caucus. Perhaps I've missed something, but I don't see Obama as anymore (and Matthews actually used this reference) "a child of the third world" than Mike Huckabee is the voice of intelligent Christians (of which I'm not sure Mike is one), or Rudy Giuliani is the voice of adulterers everywhere, or that Hillary is just another Bill.

Meanwhile, Matthews is rather "kind" in noting that Huckabee seems out of touch with what's going on in the world or even in this country. Huckabee, for example, is claiming he appeared on Jay Leno's "The Tonight Show" last night not knowing there was a writers' strike going on (and if you believe this one, than kindly believe I'm a 6 foot tall anorexic natural blonde 17 year old who wants someday to be as smart as the "so dumb she almost makes Paris Hilton seem like she has an IQ in the double digits" Miss South Carolina). But even if you buy (and you shouldn't) Huckabee's claim of ignorance on crossing picket lines, he's equally clueless about a number of other far more important points, such as Pakistan's politics and his repeated statements that religious freedom and true democracy in the US can only be achieved by forcing every American to be baptized into his evangelical faith and to rewrite the Constitution based on his version of the Bible.

To sum it up, if the media's coverage of the Iowa caucus tonight is any indication of how the rest of their reporting on the November's upcoming presidential vote will go, we're in even bigger trouble than we've been.

Mike Huckabee: Moralist Anus In Sweater And Tie

Mike Huckabee makes me ill, the closer to the election it gets:

The Media never ceases to (unpleasantly) amaze me; after Huckabee has denied evolution, slung as much dirt wherever he can, believes women must "submit" graciously to their men, tried to liken himself to Christ being persecuted over his "cross" Christmas greeting, told people they are required to believe in God and worship Him as Huckabee would in order to "deserve" a free and democratic America (now there's some logic!) and labeled even monogamous gays with those who perform necrophilia and pedophilia, or happen to like a little leather, only NOW does the media think Huckabee's crossed the line by calling all their attention to a negative slam ad his campaign just pulled from release like he wanted brownie points for not doing what his alert to the media accomplished.

Says this shiksa, "Oy!"

Bad Gets Worse

From Reuters (and filed in the Empires Crumble department):

Police fired tear gas and clubbed thousands of lawyers protesting President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's decision to impose emergency rule, as Western allies threatened to review aid to the troubled Muslim nation. More than 1,500 people have been arrested in 48 hours, and authorities put a stranglehold on independent media.