"We have a 14 trillion dollar budget" --so a 400 billion (correction 600 billion) deficit is insignificant.


"Kuwait is a democracy"

"They're gonna find weapons and they are going to find a lot."

"Kerry is a communist"

When Kerry faught for our country --at 22 it was a calculated move planned ahead to further his political career later.

"The recession happened under Clinton"

If not for the evil protesters, the war in viet nam would have ended 2 years earlier.

There are more trees now in the US than when Columbus landed.

Freedom is slavery

2+2=5

Just some facts you should be made aware of...

Old school smear tactics

Here's the official word from the american communist party website:

In the past month, several phony reports have been circulated by right-leaning papers and websites -- making various false claims about the Communist Party position on the 2004 elections. Some have dabbled in dirty tricks to smear Kerry using the toxic mix of red-baiting and forgery. For instance, several websites have allowed a forged document to be posted that appears be an official CPUSA endorsement of Kerry, but it is in fact an incompetent counterfeit. They not only twisted our position around, they even got the name of our National Chair wrong (It's Sam Webb, not Marc Brodine)!

It's called red-baiting. The classic old school smear tactic. I've got some news. The 50s are over. The red-scare is over. McCArthy sucked.

Theresa Heinz owns a major successful corporation. I don't think communism would be good for the Kerry family. Certainly eliminating the tax cuts for the top 1 percent and giving some back to the middle class wouldn't be directly good for them.


Gee who's losing their job over this at Fox News? Where's the outrage? Who's stepping down?

Marketing Buzz Phrases. Just something I thought of.

Marketing Buzz Phrases

"September 11th," "The War On Terror," "Coke Adds Life."

These are marketing buzz phrases. You know, like the extremely effective "Just Say No."

You could sell Republicans all kinds of turds as long as they are packaged in commemorative September 11th red-white-and-blue wrapping paper with a little cross on top.

"What, you don't want this turd? Are you anti-American? Anti God? Why do you hate America? Have you forgotten September 11th? Here buy the turd!"

NOTE: To be fair, one could also say democrats will accept any turd wrapped in a green recycled box with the word "diversity" or something on it. Certainly they would accept any turd if it were wrapped in hemp.

Republican Convention

Summed up:

Bla bla September 11th bla September 11th bla bla September 11th bla bla Tax Cuts bla bla September 11th bla bla Gurley men, bla bla September 11th bla spitballs bla bla No Child Left Behind bla bla September 11th.

I've never seen a tragedy so cheaply exploited as then. They even had a September 11th banner behind them! Sheesh.

In the 40s, these guys would have been outside Auschwitz concentration camp selling "I been to Auschwitz and all I got was this stupid T-Shirt" shirts. Well maybe not that bad...

The Bump

After the convention the Bush Admin got a 2 point bump in the Gallup Poll.

Kerry's points actually went down a point after the convention (many believe it was the whole swift boat thing).

What this seems to prove is that the conventions didn't do squat this election. (compare to Mondale's 10 point jump in 84 or Dukakkis 7 point bump in 88 or Clinton's whopping 16 point jump in 92).

What this means to me is that people for the most part have their minds made up one way or another already --and no amount of conventioning is going to change it much.

Conversations with my Brother part 1

Addendum... I changed this from "Conversations with my Mom part 2" because apparently having read this post, she feels I'm mischaracterizing her views --actually this is more a responce to my Brother's continuing "Liberal Media" complaints.

Maybe I got the wrong message from them altogether. What I thought they were saying was that the News didn't mention that the Chechnyan Separatists were Moslem, and that was more evedence that the news media is biased toward the left.

It occurred to me that I knew they were Moslem because everybody knows Chechnians are primarily Moslem.

It would be like saying "The news somehow neglected to mention that the Iraqi insurgents are Moslem!"

But even if it wasn't common knowledge, are you saying that for every "terrorist" act in the world it's important to report the religion of those who did it? Was it a liberal or conservative bias for the media not to mention that Timothy McVaigh was a protestant? or that the Japanese subway poison gas bombers were Buddhist?

Maybe its suspicious to you that the press isn't being "anti-muslom" enough?

What really bothers me is that no one said anything about the war that had been going on between Russia and Chechnya. They had been at war for a long time with brutal attacks on both sides, but I suppose because the Chechnians are Moslem it's OK to kill them and their children, but when they do it back it's "Terrorism" and they're just evil. Bush called it "Just another example of what lengths terrorists will go to." And since when is Putin a good guy? Man it's all of a sudden a weird world. If Waco happened now, they would just have been labeled "terrorists" and all of a sudden they would have had ties with Al queada and they would have just bombed the place right off. This whole "war on terror" really scares me.

From a congressional report:

"Sadly, this tragic situation shows no signs of ending soon. The fighting goes on. Russian forces conduct sweeps, sealing towns and villages and searching house to house for fighters. Often these sweeps are subsequently followed by reports of the beatings, rape, and torture of civilians, of extortion, or the disappearances of young men."


More about the "Liberal Media"

The "Liberal Media" neglected to say anything about Halliburton until evil people like Michael Moore yelled their heads off about it for like a year --and then it was sort of dismissive and more making it look like a cooky conspiracy theory.

The "Liberal Media" never said much about human rights abuses at Abu Grhaib till the pictures were already circulating even though the Red Cross had been complaining for almost 2 years.

But to assume liberal bias in the media because they report "every time one of our soldiers gets killed..." I mean what are they supposed to do? At best its like a home news station not reporting when the opposing football team scores a point on the home team, and at worst its like an insult to the sacrifice that the soldiers are making over there. If I lost a loved one over there I'd be pissed if there was nothing on the news about it, like it never happened. Is that what they should do? That would be like having our own Al jezira (or what you think al jezira is based on what OUR news says about them).

<>Anyone who thinks there is a liberal media has forgotten the entire 90s. Just one example: . There were 13,641 stories about Bill Clinton 'dodging the draft' …and (before moveon.org and michealmoore.com) there were 49 stories about Bush and the National Guard.

Here's another thought to consider: The Republicans have the House and the Senate and the White House. And they have governership of most of the states. If there is anything bad to report about they aren't going to after the democrats because the democrats aren't in any position to be blamed much anymore. The press will naturally go after who's in power and right now it's the GOP.

OK I must sleep now... Thanks for meeting me for lunch. You are very sweet and I love you both. And your big scary dog too.

Medved on Gay Marriage

Here are some basic premeses of the Medved approach.

1 Homosexuality is a behavior --therefore anti-descrimination laws do not apply.

Actually it's hard for me to believe that since gay people often practice celebacy (Morressey was celebate for years) but still, he was gay You wouldn't say a gay person isn't gay because at that moment he happens to be eating a sandwich instead of practicing some homosexual "behavior." Conversely men in prison exhibit such behavior often who would never identify themselves as gay even while doing it. So you often have the orientation completely irrespective of the "behavior."

2 Homosexuality is a lifestyle choice rather than an inherrant trait.

Granted, there is no way for me or Mr. Medved to know whether this is true or not. It therefore makes sense that neither of us are qualified to impose our opinion on the matter on others and decide whether or not their union should be recognized by the government as legitimate or whether they are entitled to protection under the current anti-descrimination laws.
Furthermore, just because we don't know if it's a choice doesn't mean no one knows. There is a group of people who know very well. They are called homosexuals. Just ask one. Generally when asked whether their sexual orientation was a choice homosexuals come up with the same answer: was yours a choice? When did you decide to be straight?
In my own experience, sexual attraction has been something I have had completely no control over. I couldn't decide not to like women any more than I could decide to hate the taste of chocolate. So to believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice would be to believe that it is unlike anything in my experience involving human urges and most if not all homosexuals are lying.

3 A ban on gay marriage isn't discriminitory --since they have the same right to marry the opposite sex as heterosexuals do.

This is typical of the lawyer-ball logic at which Medved excels. By this same argument you could just as easily say that the 1950s ban on interracial marriage wasn't discrimination because black people could marry within their race just as white people could.

I hope one day 40 years from now we can look back with the same satisfaction at having shed some of the out dated prejudices of our grandfathers.

4 It's not about hating homosexuals or banning anything, it's all about preserving the definition of marriage.

First, there is no THE definition of marriage. My wife and I got married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. I imagine this kind of thing would be scandalous and perhaps not even recognized by some people 50 years ago.

For some marriage is an arraingement between the parents of the respective participants involving property ownership and family relationships.

To me a ban on gay marriage is not preserving THE definition of marriage, but imposing YOUR definition of marriage.

Second, it's kind of a cowardly to reduce the argument to semantics. It's not about a "word definition" when a life partner of many years can't visit his or her loved one in the hospital or have power of attourney or share health care benefits because of this "definition." It's a reality with real life consequences.

To better illustrate my point, let's say my definition of my foot is "The part of my body that I put shoes on and is in your ass." Now, I have nothing against you. I certainly wouldn't want to assault you Nobody wants to kick you in the ass --I'm a nice guy! I'm just seeking to preserve THE definition of my foot. What? Are you going to attack the definition of my foot? Feet are very important! Clearly I'm the victim here. What do you have against my foot? etc...

There's an even weaker more cowardly version of this argument going around:

4b I have nothing against Gay Marriage, but I don't think Judges should be making up the law / breaking the law...etc.

This is like the "It's not that you left me for another woman, it's HOW you left me..." argument.

In other words, I know you're not going to accept "I'm a homophobe and I hate homosexuals" or "I don't think homosexuals should have the right to marry one-another." So I'll water it down a bit and see if you'll swallow "I don't think Judges should over-step their bounds in this case."

First : Actually Judges make the law all the time. It's called "Case Law."

Second: You sure didn't mind when Judges picked your president.

Third: Many of the civil rights (I know republicans hate civil rights) we enjoy are because people at one time or another broke the law. From Bra-burning suffregettes to striking workers to Rosa Parks breaking the law by sitting at the front of the bus. Civil disobedience is unfortunately sometimes the only way real social change can be made in this country.

Conversations with my mom.. part 1

When I paraphrased Bush's recent misquote: "The enemy are always looking for ways to hurt our country ...and so are we..." She laughed and said, "Oh what a sweety."

I understand. He is handsome and likable. His "Bushisms" denote a human frailty that we can all relate with. After all, he's the one who braught back Carter's down home bar b q feeling back to the Whitehouse. He seems like and in many ways probably is just a "regular guy." Perhaps if he were actually running the executive branch instead of Cheney and Rumsfeld, the country would be better off.

But she did say one thing that made me think --"I don't like the democrats because all they do is hate..."

I mean clearly she didn't like democrats at least since Carter --and when did he ever hate anybody? So that can't be the reason. Still, it reminded me of why I'm registering as a Democrat this year.

I'm talking about the bitter mud-slinging partisan hatred bordering on hystaria and constant political attacks that happened during the 90s. The democrats this year don't know the meaning of hatred compared to the venom that republicans had toward Bill and Hilary Clinton. That's all they did.

I hear it on Rush and Medved all the time --how these bitter democrats are so busy attacking the president, but have they completely forgotten the 90s?

The difference is the Republicans were spewing hatred at a time when the Economy was strong, our Foreign ties were strong, we had just thwarted 15 Al quaeda attacks, our fifth amendment rights were intact and we had just succesfully ousted a dictator in the middle of a genocide.

You remember Molslovic right? Had people sniping four-year-olds out of their mother's arms on the streets, had running forced labor/starvation camps. And you wanna talk rape-rooms? These guys had rape-tents. Apparently they delivered. But I remember the radio right talking about having no business there and so on. And I remember the "Liberal Media" covering nothing but the Monica Lewenski scandal for like a year.

I would listen to these right-wingers talk about the world ending because the Clintons were so terrible and then walk outside to a country where gang violence was down to nothing compared to the Reagan/Bush years, there was a balanced budget and more people had jobs than ever before. It was a little confusing.


Here's an editorial by Paul Krugman citing examples of the republican hate going on right now:

Feel the Hate
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 3, 2004

"I don't know where George Soros gets his money," one man said. "I don't know where - if it comes from overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from." George Soros, another declared, "wants to spend $75 million defeating George W. Bush because Soros wants to legalize heroin." After all, a third said, Mr. Soros "is a self-admitted atheist; he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust."

They aren't LaRouchies - they're Republicans.

The suggestion that Mr. Soros, who has spent billions promoting democracy around the world, is in the pay of drug cartels came from Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, whom the Constitution puts two heartbeats from the presidency. After standing by his remarks for several days, Mr. Hastert finally claimed that he was talking about how Mr. Soros spends his money, not where he gets it.

The claim that Mr. Soros's political spending is driven by his desire to legalize heroin came from Newt Gingrich. And the bit about the Holocaust came from Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of The Washington Times, which has become the administration's de facto house organ.

For many months we've been warned by tut-tutting commentators about the evils of irrational "Bush hatred." Pundits eagerly scanned the Democratic convention for the disease; some invented examples when they failed to find it. Then they waited eagerly for outrageous behavior by demonstrators in New York, only to be disappointed again.

There was plenty of hatred in Manhattan, but it was inside, not outside, Madison Square Garden.

Barack Obama, who gave the Democratic keynote address, delivered a message of uplift and hope. Zell Miller, who gave the Republican keynote, declared that political opposition is treason: "Now, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief." And the crowd roared its approval.

Why are the Republicans so angry? One reason is that they have nothing positive to run on (during the first three days, Mr. Bush was mentioned far less often than John Kerry).

The promised economic boom hasn't materialized, Iraq is a bloody quagmire, and Osama bin Laden has gone from "dead or alive" to he-who-must-not-be-named.

Another reason, I'm sure, is a guilty conscience. At some level the people at that convention know that their designated hero is a man who never in his life took a risk or made a sacrifice for his country, and that they are impugning the patriotism of men who have.

That's why Band-Aids with Purple Hearts on them, mocking Mr. Kerry's war wounds and medals, have been such a hit with conventioneers, and why senior politicians are attracted to wild conspiracy theories about Mr. Soros.

It's also why Mr. Hastert, who knows how little the Bush administration has done to protect New York and help it rebuild, has accused the city of an "unseemly scramble" for cash after 9/11. Nothing makes you hate people as much as knowing in your heart that you are in the wrong and they are in the right.

But the vitriol also reflects the fact that many of the people at that convention, for all their flag-waving, hate America. They want a controlled, monolithic society; they fear and loathe our nation's freedom, diversity and complexity.

The convention opened with an invocation by Sheri Dew, a Mormon publisher and activist. Early rumors were that the invocation would be given by Jerry Falwell, who suggested just after 9/11 that the attack was God's punishment for the activities of the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way, among others. But Ms. Dew is no more moderate: earlier this year she likened opposition to gay marriage to opposition to Hitler.

The party made sure to put social moderates like Rudy Giuliani in front of the cameras. But in private events, the story was different. For example, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas told Republicans that we are in a "culture war" and urged a reduction in the separation of church and state.

Mr. Bush, it's now clear, intends to run a campaign based on fear. And for me, at least, it's working: thinking about what these people will do if they solidify their grip on power makes me very, very afraid.