I hear McCain served in the military and that Obama may pick a VP in the next couple weeks.
Discuss.
by John Cole| 35 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
I hear McCain served in the military and that Obama may pick a VP in the next couple weeks.
Discuss.
by John Cole| 44 Comments
This post is in: Politics
I am so sick of this nonsense:
Doctors may not discriminate against gays and lesbians in medical treatment, even if the procedures being sought conflict with physicians’ religious beliefs, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday.
In its second major decision advancing gay rights this year, the state high court ruled that religious physicians must obey a state law that bars businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
If your religious beliefs keep you from treating your patients, find another line of work.
Depressing That It Took A Court DecisionPost + Comments (44)
This post is in: Election 2008
I really don’t care to spend the next few weeks arguing whether or not McCain is lying about his Christ/Cross/guard moment and will let others chase after things that can not be proven one way or another, but Michael Goldfarb’s defenses are becoming increasingly bizarre:
It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others. John McCain has often said he witnessed a thousand acts of bravery while he was imprisoned, and though not every one has been submitted into the public record, they are remembered by the men who were there (one such only recently reported by Karl Rove though it escaped mention in any of Senator McCain’s books). But as Swindle said, this is a “desperate group of people trying to make something out of nothing.”
First, Orson Swindle really doesn’t have much credibility on most things, and is a particularly amusing choice when you are trying to defending McCain from these charges based on his military service, as it was Orson Swindle who was smearing Wes Clark just a few weeks ago:
“General Clark probably wouldn’t get that much praise from this group. I can’t speak for them, but we all know that General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar.”
Second, this is at least the second or third time Goldfarb has brought up Dungeons and Dragons. As nothing is accidental with these clowns, why this choice? Is it to build up McCain’s macho street cred by attacking the nerdy Obama and his supporters? Are the religious nuts still convinced D&D is a tool of satan? Is there some sort of anti-D&D demographic out there that is the new soccer mom? Or is Michael Goldfarb just an idiot and forgot to vary his schoolyard insults?
At any rate, I really don’t care about McCain’s war record anymore. His ideas suck. They would suck even if he had spent ten years in a prison camp and won the CMH.
Increasingly Bizarre- Michael Goldfarb’s +7 Rapier of JackasseryPost + Comments (159)
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
Just nothing out there very compelling, at least for me. Seems like the campaign really is in the dull stretches of August.
Maybe something exciting will happen. I doubt it.
This post is in: Election 2008, Mainstream Media's McCain Mancrush
I think there is pretty solid evidence that he’s just copying other peoples’ shit.
1. The story sounds very much like a Solzhenitsyn story (via Sullivan)
Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.
As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.
As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed.
2. McCain is a Solzhenitsyn fan (via GOS)
The other possibility is that McCain really thinks this happened to him, and can’t differentiate between something he read and something he actually experienced. I’m pretty convinced that he experienced no such thing. As Rickrocket notes: “Somehow I doubt that Alexander Solzhenitsyn heard John McCain’s story and copied it.”
My guess? No one will ask McCain about it for fear of being accused of questioning his patriotism.
McCain’s Borrowed “Cross in the Sand” StoryPost + Comments (125)
by Michael D.| 4 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Not unexpected, but sad nontheless:
Leroy Sievers, a National Public Radio commentator who turned his battle with cancer into a popular and touching radio and online series, has died from his disease. He was 53.
Larry Sievers covered more than a dozen wars during his time with ABC, CBS and NPR.
Sievers died Friday at his home in Maryland, NPR announced Saturday in a statement.
He was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 2001. In 2005, the disease returned as a brain tumor and lung cancer.
A report on his own chemotherapy treatments in February 2006 was broadcast on “Morning Edition” and prompted an enthusiastic response from the audience.
It eventually became a regular series and feature on the network’s Web site.
I’ve heard every one of his “diaries” for the past couple years, so like a lot of people, I felt like I knew him a little. Definitely one of NPR’s more interesting features.
This post is in: Election 2008
I just heard Tim Pawlenty on CBS tell me that John McCain is decisive and clear and showed that last night, and then I went over to the Carpetbagger and read this jumbled mess of an answer from McCain:
“Some of the richest people I’ve ever known in my life are the most unhappy. I think that rich is — should be defined by a home, a good job and education and the ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one that we inherited. I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. I don’t believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth. But I can tell you for example there are small businessmen and women who are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week that some people would classify as, quote, ‘rich,’ my friends, who want to raise their taxes and raise their payroll taxes. Let’s have — keep taxes low. Let’s give every family in America a $7,000 tax credit for every child they have. Let’s give them a $5,000 refundable tax credit to go out and get the health insurance of their choice. Let’s not have the government take over the health care system in America.
“So I think if you’re just talking about income, how about $5 million. But seriously, I don’t think you can — I don’t think, seriously that — the point is that I’m trying to make here seriously — and I’m sure that comment will be distorted, but the point is — the point is — the point is that we want to keep people’s taxes low and increase revenues. And my friend, it was not taxes that mattered in America in the last several years. It was spending. Spending got completely out of control. We spent money in a way that mortgaged our kids futures. My friends, we spent $3 million of your money to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Now I don’t know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue, but the point is — but the point is it was $3 million of your money. It was your money.
“And you know, we laugh about it, but we cry and we should cry because the Congress is supposed to be careful stewards of your tax dollars. so what did they just do in the middle of an energy crisis when in California we are paying $4 a gallon for gas, went on vacation for five weeks. I guarantee you, two things they never miss, a pay raise and a vacation. And we should stop that and call them back and not raise your taxes. We should not and cannot raise taxes in tough economic times. So it doesn’t matter really what my definition of rich is because I don’t want to raise anybody’s taxes.”
I made more sense last night than John McCain.