Hillary was in our area yesterday...not campaigning, just trying to get a look at Johnny Depp.

Grace? Like Jackie O and Elaine Benes?

Have any of you guys seen any of the late night political skits like SNL and/or recent YouTube videos of Obama Girl, or the cross dresser playing Hillary? Some are hilarious.



TIS

I'm getting all the comedy I need from the actual campaign, TIS.

Ha Ha ha!! Yea, I get your drift.

Ol' McCain is sailing along without any worries thus far isn't he?


TIS

Maybe many of you have seen this montage of all three of the candidates. I saw it on Dan Abrams show last week. It is very good actually. I think you'll get a laugh or two out of it.

TIS

Political Comedy

"Shit, now I remember why I live in France."

Sounds about right.

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer's editorial page today. I'm putthing it in this post because of McCain's stance on the war.

On Iraq, Cheney grunts his indifference
Sunday, March 30, 2008Dick Feagler Plain Dealer Columnist

The other night on TV, somebody asked Dick Cheney about the fact that almost 80 percent of Americans are against this war.

Cheney said: "So?"

That amazing response got very little play on the nightly news. "So?" About a war? His war?

"So?"

No. You have to do better than that.

I've seen my share of cold fish sending kids off to die. But when the polls objected to that sacrifice, I never heard anyone answer the anguish with a word like, "So?"

Does Cheney really feel he can't explain the unreasonable Iraq war? Other than to say, "So?"

When the public who trusted his administration risk their children and their money to finance a bloody war which has led us to the brink of bankruptcy and now quiz him about it - is his answer, "So?"

Since by now we know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, is his answer, "So?"

Since by now we realize that Iraq is cleft by a civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, who, as I write this, are firing at one another, is his answer, "So?"

Since now there is obviously no easy way out of this war he plunged us into - a war that he predicted would be over years ago because we would be greeted as liberators - if we ask him, "What happened?" is his answer to be, "So?"

When we were told that the horrendous cost of this war would be paid for by the oil reserves in Iraq, and now we see that it costs us a fortune to fill our gas tanks, is his answer, "So?"

When we finally have come to realize that Iraq is complex, and that we didn't understand the Muslim forces at war with each other, and that we had no way to soothe their ills, and that we didn't know what the hell we were really getting into, is his answer, "So?"

Now that we have taken an American army, the best on earth, and stretched it to the point that it is close to being fractured; now that we have taken our reserves - and that is what the word meant: reserves - and put them on the front line of a ceaseless war with no notion of when they will ever return, is his answer, "So?"

Now that we are losing Afghanistan, the hotbed of al-Qaida where America and the world was unified when it came to invading something - now that we are losing that, is his answer, "So?"

Now that this total lack of foreign policy has made us a pariah around the world, and little by little, the so-called coalition of the willing are pulling out, including the Brits, is his answer, "So?"

Now that the U.S. economy has failed in part because we have borrowed money from countries that saw the ditch we were digging and decided they could make a buck off the fact that we are in hock, is there a question there? And his answer is, "So?"

Now that we have no credibility left in the world, we have shunned the U.N., the countries that used to respect us are fleeing from us and cutting their own deals around us, is his answer, "So?"

When the vice president of the United States is faced with a simple question about how most of this country has turned against this ill-fated enterprise, the best answer he can come up with is, "So?"

The best thing that has happened to Cheney and President Bush is the rotten economy. It has taken our eyes off the ball. Otherwise, we would wonder why we are mired in a war that has lasted longer that World War II without any clear-cut victory and is robbing our children of their lives and their economic birthright.

Cheney is engineering this war drawing on his military experience, which consists of five Vietnam-era draft deferments.

He has done all he could to avoid serving the men and women he has sent to fight, and that explains his answer. That's why he can say, "So?"

What he was really saying was, "No skin off mine."

Cheney is mellowing. "So?" is actually lass offensive than his former response of "Go f*** yourself."

Cheney has exuded indifference to the plight of Americans dealing with rising gas prices and struggling to make their mortgage payments. He manipulated information and fabricated stories to justify a war, from which his former company has profited immensely.

I saw Obama today at my school. It was fucking awesome. I cannot wait until he is the next President.

That's great Patrick. Where you in the audience of Hardball with Chris Mathews? Any pictures?

TIS

It looked like he had the audience hypnotized.

You can't deny the guy is charismatic, that's for sure. It's just being reported that he raised over $40 million just in March. They said the average donation was $100. That's remarkable. And, for the most part, all on-line.

TIS

Yeah I was there for the Hardball thing. No pics, but it was still sick. They converted the gym into a tv studio. I didn't even feel like I was in West Chester. The atmosphere was awesome. I saw Edwards back in 04 when he came to Reading, but that doesn't even compare to yesterday. Yesterday was awesome.

Well, I heard Obama on The View state that Rev. Wright had admitted that his statements about white people, America, and Italians was irresponsible. But Obama failed to state where I could go to find such a statement. Noone in the media seems to know of such a statement by Wright.

By the way, Hillary raised $20 million which is the second largest amount she's raised during a month.

What I find strange with the obama and the church episode is why is he condemning now for statements made in 2001... it wasn't a secret statement, he would have heard about it definitely. If Obama is sincere, he would have distanced himself then, much before anyone raised the issue. And if the people against obama are sincere, they shouldn't even have raised the issue in the first place for someone else's comments or having raised the issue, not accept any condemning statements from him after so many years. It looks like those against him are more concerned about throwing mud at him before election and he himself is more concerned about saving face than having strong opinions then and now. It is ludicrous from every side.

Politicians are like a bunch of openly dirty cheating sports teams battling each other with their fans rooting every step of the way and everyone else is scared and confused that these people run our nation.

Look, I know that Obama is not responsible for what other people say. However, if the pastor of my church, which is a Roman Catholic church, started preaching that the Church did the right thing by hushing up the Pedophile Priests, and that it was perfectly OK for the priests to do what they did, and that more priests should have sex with young children, I would find a statement like that so against my personal beliefs that I would demand his resignation. If my parish felt that it was okay for him to stay, I would leave and go to a different church.

Obama, who says that he despises the sentiment of these statements, would make the leap to despising the man who said them. However, he remained fairly close with him and is still a member of his church (and please correct me if I'm wrong). How can you expect anyone who spews such venom to act as your spiritual and moral guide, which is what a pastor is supposed to do.

I have found Obama to be incredibly bright, charismatic, quick on his feet, and wonderfully refreshing. This whole thing does bother me, though.

I agree with SB. If the preacher of my church(Church Of Christ)decided he wasn't going to preach God's word according to the scriptures and preached false doctrine instead I would speak out against him and if nothing was done I would find another congregation to attend.

First of all this is a tempest in a teapot. There should be no religious test in this country for public office.

Having been raised a Catholic, sent to Catholic Schools through 12th Grade, and having raised my children Catholic I am admittedly somewhat lapsed these days, but if someone asks me whay my religion is, I will say Catholic. SOmeone please Google Father Coughlin from the 30's and see what hate speech he engaged in over the radio. Read the history of Church complicity with the Nazi's and fascists in WWII. IN the pre Vatican II era, when I was a child I was told it was a mortal sin punishable by being sent to hell to attend any church service of any religion that was not Catholic. Look at statements made in the past few election cycles by priests and bishops regarding telling their flocks that it is a sin to vote for anyone who does not oppose abortion. Look at what all those priests did to young boys and how it was covered up. SHould I walk out on the church? Should all Catholics? OF course not.
You take the good with the bad in any religion.

I am not defending what Obama's minister siad, however the loops they are running are sometimes out of context and are rather brief for someone who has been in the pulpit for 30 years.

As for many of his comments about America, consider his age. Read about the garbage collectors strike in Memphis where MLK was murdered and what went on. The fact is the US has been a racist country.

The fact also is that the US is not always in the right. As Martin Luther King himself said, the greatest threat to world peace is the Inited States. Should we disavow his other works for having said this?

What in the hell is a racist country? Explain that. Out of the 150 million or so peole that populated America during the memphis garbage strike, how many could you have possibly known? How many could MLK have possibly known? In both cases, a handfull, right? So, how in the world can you maintain that the US is or ever was a racist country?

Wright's comments in their entirety have been played on several cable shows; they are stated in their entirety on several websites including his own. He does damn the US; he does state that the [federal] government imports and distributes drugs in black communities; he does state that the [federal] government developed AIDS to kill black people. His words are plain and simple. They are not contextual. He could have said any number of things, but he chose to say those things. He did not provide them as an example or as an analogy. He also equates the Romans with Italians without any anthropolgical evidence and without any damn reason for doing so in the first place.

It doesn't matter a damn bit what anyone else does; you are responsible for your words and your actions. And in response to your stupid question: yes, you should walk out on any person who utters such egregious words or engages in such egregious actions. And, in your case, if you can reasonably extrapoltae such words and actions to the Catholic Church, then you should find another church through which to exercise your relationship with your God.

This cafone of a so called reverend condemned my race, condemned my ethnicity, condemned my government, and condemned my nation. He can go to hell for all I care.

Some of comments certainly blown out of proportion. I watched a few of his sermons on youtube, and the vast majority of the "scary quotes" were definitely taken out of context. Wright embraces a radical interpretation of Christianity that takes "turn the other cheek" and "examine yourself first" very seriously. Yet he definitely definitely has nutty theories on race, such as the US government using AIDS to suppress blacks. But given the US long history of brutal medical experiments on black people ( Tuskagee is only the tip of the iceburg) and he is from that generation, I can understand, but not condone, his hysteria.

But I think the issue here is why the media focused so hard on Wright but doesn't spend a second focusing on the white pastors who support John McCain. This is just more evidence of the racism that still exists in this society. So when do we start seeing the media examining John (the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon) Hagee or Rod (the USA was founded by God to eradicate Islam) Parsley? Because while McCain doesn't actually attend their churches on a regular basis, he sure did do a lot of running after them for an endorsement.

Exactly. But back to Wright, he is not saying that all white Americans are sympathetic to the KKK, etc. Wright is talking about the government. It seems that most people who are finding overt "racism" in Wright's statements are hearing him talk about racial issues and mistaking that for actual racial prejudice.

Pat Robertson both said America deserved 9/11 because of homos and the ACLU, John Hagee continues to believe that the City of New Orleans got what it deserved when Katrina drowned its residents and devastated the lives of thousands of Americans, yet John McCain shares a stage with Hagee and lavishes him with praise, as Rudy Giuliani did with Pat Robertson. Where is your outrage there?

First of all, you should accurately quote or paraphrase what people say. The words purportedly spoken by Hagee and Robertson were in unrecorded interviews and not on video. Pejorative statements that they have made about groups of people or physical locations are based on their articles of faith. The pejorative statements made by Wright about my race, about my ethnicity, and about my government are not based on articles of faith. He disguises them as liberation theology crap when they are really a function of his inability to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that accompany every life.

And by the way, neither Hagee nor Robertson are McCain's pastor, and neither attacked my race or my ethnicity.

So not having the media run the video of their statements over and over and over again makes what they say OK? Hagee comments are recorded on NPR Fresh Air,and Robertson on the 700 club show.

What did Wright say about the government?

The Government created disease to unleash on minorities ... ok, silly, but I referenced the probable reasons for that paranoia above.

We, through Israel, have supported state sponsored terrorism against the Palestinians

Debatable. To us terrorism is a bomb under a coat in a restaurant, but arguably terrorism might be also rolling bulldozers through villages with innocent casualities

Muslim extremism is not caused only by guys that want to become ghosts and party with virgin ghosts. Some of the cause is linked to our foreign policy and actions over there

IMHO, true. Some of it may be caused by our foreign policy.

The American judicial system is weighted against blacks.

IMHO, true. Acknowledging that inequity still exists is not divisive or racist.

Well, Olivant, how much time do you have.

Lets start with slavery. Capturing human beings in Africa, forcing them on to boats, moving them across the ocean, breaking up their families, putting them up for sale and forcing them to work without pay as a national policy is in your mind not racist, I guess.

Slavery was not abolished evenin the North until well into the 1800's, by the way, so most of the old infrastructure of this country was built by African slave labor. That is not racist in your mind, I guess.

When they wrote the constitution... our beloved infallible founding fathers decided the way to count population in the various states was to count each slave as being three fifths of a human being. That is not racist in your mind, I guess.

When they wrote the "divinely inspired" bill of rights, they left out slavery, which was not abolished until the middle of the 1800's. That is not racist in your mind, I guess.

In 1896 the United States Supreme Court ruled that a person who had more than one eighth "negro blood" could be forced to ride in a restricted part of a train. That is not racist in your mind, I guess.

In 1942 American citizens, born in this country whose parents came from Japan were sumarily rounded up and placed in concentration camps without lawyers, trials or any other rights. That is not racist in your mind, I guess.

Not until 1954 did the Supreme Court of the United states rule that it was the law of the land that schools could not be segregated (which has since set off a racist based mantra against "activist judges:). That is not racist in your mind I guess.

Not until 1964....could black people stay in hotels of their choosing, go to restaurants of their choosing or even sit next to white people of their choosing as a matter of law. This is not racist in your mind, I guess.

Not until the following year were black people "allowed" to vote freely without government sanctioned poll taxes and other restrictions. That is not racist in your mind I guess.

Taking advantage of the white backlash against civil rights progress, Richard Nixon invented the "Southern Strategy," which has created a reactionary majority in presidential elections in this country since 1968...one of the more recent developments of which was George Bush's famous claim in SOuth Carlina in 2000 that John McCain was unfit to be president because he had an illegitimate black child. A lie that forced McCain to inexplicably defend the confederate flage, for which he later apologized. That is not racist in your mind I guess.

In this presidential primary Hillary Clinton, with her back to the wall, and speaking in thinly disguised code says Barak Obama may be qualified to be president but he is "unelectable." That is not racist in your mind, I guess.


Please Olivant, I think your mind is going soft from all that comedy your'e playing with that young girl.

Racism is America's "Original Sin" and it has yet to be purged.

DT, you give some excellent examples. And I agree that the USA has a racist history.

HOWEVER, hate-mongering is hate-mongering, I don't care WHO says it, be it Pat Robertson, Hagee, Reverend Wright, or Bozo the Clown. And if a candidate aligns him- or herself as closely with such a person as Obama has aligned himself with Reverend Wright, then chances are they will be painted with the same brush.

A pastor is (IMHO) supposed to be a moral and spiritual leader. They are to be your advisor, mentor and confidante. The Obamas were married in that church, they christened their children in that church and his website touts his long-standing membership in that church. Reverend Wright was invited to the campaign kickoff (and then quickly UNinvited) and has been a volunteer.

Almost all peoples whether defined by race or ethnicity have been slaves at one time of some other race or ethnicity. What does it have to do with racism and especially as a national characteristic? The Spanish enslaved the Incas. The Turks enslaved Sicilians. The British enslaved Irish. The west African kingdoms of Benin, the Kongo, the Gold Coast, and Mali enslaved each other and Africans of the continent’s interior and facilitated their sale to others. Racism?

Pennsylvania and Massachusetts eliminated slavery in their domains in 1780 and 1781 respectively. Several other states followed soon thereafter. The Constitution wasn’t ratified until June 1788. So, what nation are you referring to as racist?

In its opinion in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the US Supreme Court opined that the Louisiana’s public transport segregation law satisfied the equal protection provision of the Constitution’s 14th amendment which it did. The Court did not opine on racial segregation

Prior to the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, Japanese in the US were not interned, were they? So maybe, just maybe, their internment had something to do with national security concerns and not with racism. By the way, along with Japanese, Germans and Italians were interned also. There are plenty of sources on the subject. I guess their internment was racist also.

Without the slavery compromise embodied in the US Constitution, there would not be a US Constitution nor a US nor a civil war and slavery might just still exist in parts of America. In that case, if you are black, you might very well be a slave this day.

Since the subject of a Bill of Rights was initially proffered during he Constitutional Convention and since the success of that Convention was a function of compromise (including about slavery), it seems unlikely (even inane) to suggest that just two years later, James Madison’s composition of his 19 rights could have contained a provision regarding slavery. Even if it had, it would not have obtained the ¾ state legislatures’ approval threshold required by the Constitution.

365,000 Union soldiers gave their lives to end slavery and ensure the application of the 13th amendment in all parts of America. God knows how many others died of their War wounds not to mention those that were maimed during the War. America’s racism at work again, huh?

In its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the Supreme Court opined that racially segregated education was inherently unequal; it didn’t opine that it was racist. That decision was the modern Court’s first use of substantive due process in forming its opinions which gives Constitutional or statutory law provisions substance which their legislative history does not support.

People of any race or ethnicity could stay in any public facility of their choice all over the north, the Midwest, and the west prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There’s no substantive historical evidence of racial or ethnic discrimination against people in those regions of the country in public facilities. So, how does racial discrimination that was largely confined to the south extrapolate to America?

The Poll Tax was imposed on all citizens when they registered to vote and in only 11 states all in the south. By 1964, only 5 of those states still retained it. America’s racism at work again?

How in the hell does a claim by a candidate for public office that a candidate has an illegitimate child of any race evidence of America's racism? How in the hell is a claim by a candidate for public office that an opponent is unelectable evidence of racism to begin with and, as you are fixated on, America’s racism?

You know it was entirely possible to be anti-slavery BECAUSE you were anti-Black. Many of the white inhabitants of the Northern and Western states and territories held severe racist beliefs. Some went so far as to ban ANY Black residents. Others had numerous petty segregation laws. In very few of the states which forbade slavery were any Blacks extended all of the rights which whites had. Black schools were burned down; Blacks were prevented from voting or giving testimony in other states; still others states prevented Blacks from owning property or running businesses. And of course there was always the danger of pogroms to drive Blacks out. Some people were pretty open and honest about a dedication to white supremacy back then. If you don't find that racist well that's that.



The Plessy v.Ferguson decision codified racial segregation for another sixty years. Ironically it did so by accepting the ridiculous idea that a man who was "seven eighths white" was nonetheless Black enough to be forced to sit in the Black section. It also pretended not to notice distinctions by claiming that only Black people were injecting race or a feeling of inferiority into the discussion. If you are questioning why Obama and other "biracial" Americans often identify as "Black", look no further than the attitudes revealed by this decision.



Maybe, just maybe if white slaveowners had been proud enough to do their own work instead of being so lazy and vicious that they forced others to work without pay for hundreds of years, things could have gone differently..
Slavery and genocide was not inevitable. Perhaps if the issue had been forced then the United States would have gotten rid of slavery much sooner than it did or not had it at all.
In that case if you are white you might very well not have to deal with a heritage of slavery. In fact the concept of "white" might not even exist.



And by the 1880's the white North was interested in reconciliation with the white South and so allowed the reintroduction of slavery in all but name. Black politicians were murdered. Black schools were burned. Lynching became the law of the land. Any Black person who even looked like he or she was attempting economic or political independence was literally taking their lives in their hands, as well as the lives of their families.

BTW some of those Union soldiers who died were Black. They fought and died even though they were paid less, segregated and couldn't advance in the US Army.



Olivant, what the f*** are you talking about here? That's just plain ridiculous. There was plenty of segregation in the North, West and Midwest prior to Civil Rights Act of 1964, and for that matter even afterwards. CORE was organized to fight segregation in the North AND the South. Segregation was not as codified as in the South but Blacks were definitely subject to segregation depending on the whims or habits of the local whites. Some areas were better than others..others were worse. Las Vegas, of all places was notorious for segregation. Some towns were sundown towns. This meant that any Black person had better be out of there by night time or s/he was subject to arrest or worse. These towns were mostly in the North- Indiana, Iowa, Michigan...



Oh and I guess Blacks were just voting in droves throughout the South in those states that didn't have a poll tax. Hmm, so I guess you never heard of grandfather clauses, literacy tests, white only primaries, good character clauses, economic retaliation against those attempting to register to vote, intimidation, arrest and ultimately assault or murder? Just what in the hell do you think Black people were so angry about? Why was a Civil Rights movement even necessary in your opinion?