Tag Archives: 2008 presidential race

Sarah Palin speaks on the First Amendment

1 Nov


Per Glenn Greenwald in Salon:

Somehow, in Sarah Palin’s brain, it’s a threat to the First Amendment when newspapers criticize her negative attacks on Barack Obama. This is actually so dumb that it hurts:

In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by “attacks” from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

Click through to read Greenwald’s complete analysis of why this hurts, if you enjoy seeing someone take the stupid people to task, and do it very well.

Sarah Palin’s War on Science

28 Oct

The GOP Ticket’s appalling contempt for knowledge and learning
By Christopher Hitchens

[…] This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just “people of faith” but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

Excellent summary of the very best reason to vote Obama/Biden. Their ideas are not necessarily the best ones out there, but at least they are not proud of their own stupidity.

via sunfell

Yet another attempt planned

27 Oct

Skinheads ‘planned to kill Obama’

Two men have appeared in a US court accused of making threats to kill Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal agents say.

They were also charged with possessing an unregistered firearm and conspiracy to steal from a licensed gun dealer.

The pair were named as Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesselman, 18.

Court papers allege that the neo-Nazi skinheads planned to assassinate Mr Obama in a murder spree targeting more than 100 black people.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said the men had made their first appearance before a court in Jackson, Tennessee, on Monday after being arrested last week in Crockett County in the same state. […]

I am ashamed to be a similar color to those who stupidly cling to the “racial superiority” nonsense meme.

What he said…

23 Oct

Larry David: Waiting for Nov. 4th

[…] This is like waiting for the results of a biopsy. Actually, it’s worse. Biopsies only take a few days, maybe a week at the most, and if the biopsy comes back positive, there’s still a potential cure. With this, there’s no cure. The resultis final. Like death.

Five times a day I’ll still say to someone, “I don’t know what I’m going to do if McCain wins.” Of course, the reality is I’m probably not going to do anything. What can I do? […]

There’s more at the link, and it’s definitely worth the read.

Houston Chronicle endorses Obama / Biden

19 Oct

The Chronicle endorses Barack Obama for president and Joe Biden for vice president of the United States

After carefully observing the Democratic and Republican nominees in drawn-out primary struggles as well as in the general campaign, including three debates, the Chronicle strongly believes that the ticket of Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden offers the best choice to lead the United States on a new course into the second decade of the 21st century.

Go read the entire editorial. It’s worth the time.

16 days to the election…

19 Oct

Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama. See the video.

Presidential campaign, D&D style

19 Oct

Adventuring Party Politics: The Campaign is Getting Ugly

GM:  OK, the bugbear attacks you.  What do you do?

OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it.

MCCAIN:  OK, seriously.  Why does he have so many henchmen?  I’m a level 72 ranger and he’s only a level 8 paladin.

OBAMA:  Well, if you’d bought the Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies you could min max it so that you…

MCCAIN: Why is he even IN this campaign? I thought this was supposed to be a high level party.

OBAMA: Well, maybe some people got tired of the grim and squinty “Matterhorn, son of Marathon” shtick you keep doing.  Dude, could you be any less original?

MCCAIN: Oh my god, I did not leave my left nut in a tiger cage in the Tomb of Horrors to spend my Friday nights mopping up after the new kid.

OBAMA: “My friends, I am a totally unoriginal grizzled character class stereotype.  I should lead the party because I have more testicular damage than that one.”

MCCAIN: Yeah, well, you pal around with dark elves.

OBAMA: OH NO YOU DIDN’T.
[…]

There’s much more, and it’s side-splitting funny!

From several on the friends list.

Please don’t undo all they fought for

19 Oct

From the mouths of our young women…

Leonard Pitts on Obama

18 Nov

Obama: not your father’s politician

When you walk around with Barack Obama’s new book in hand, people give you looks.

These are not the looks you get with Dean Koontz or Walter Mosley books, not looks that register and forget in the same moment. No, if the book is The Audacity of Hope, with Obama on the cover, the looks are different. Some lifting of the eyebrows, some lightening of the expression, some change of face that suggests not just recognition, but engagement.

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