You should go read this...

It's a great essay on what happened in Knoxville on Sunday.

I am never quite sure how one builds up a hatred of Unitarian Universalists. Oh, I know people exist who hate us, but it seems a bit of a wasted emotion. After all, the central tenet of Unitarianism is that nobody really knows whether there’s a God or not, and if there is, nobody really knows what he, she, it, or they are like. No lake of fire for the unbelievers, no eternal torment for the non-elect; as the great philosopher Homer J. Simpson once said, when asked what the true religion is, “Well, not the Unitarians. If that’s the one true faith I’ll eat my hat!” Not a Unitarian alive would disagree with him...

h/t to Crooks and Liars.

--WS

"You don’t spend your life fighting for women’s rights and then vote for Sen. McCain"

Steve Benen brings us a little cheer this morning:

...the MinnPost had an interesting report on the Obama rally at the Xcel Energy Center on Tuesday, and the kind of treatment Hillary Clinton’s supporters found when they got there.

Specifically, the head of Clinton’s Minnesota campaign attended the Obama event, as did a few Clinton-supporting superdelegates, Minnesota’s Secretary of State, Minneapolis City Council President, and the mayor of St. Paul, all of whom also backed Clinton. Some were reluctant to go, but showed up in the interests of “political healing.”

And they were pleasantly surprised. In fact, both Barack and Michelle Obama met privately with 25 prominent Clinton supporters after the speech.

“He shook my hand and said, ‘Thank you for being here; I’m sure it’s not easy,’ ” said Stevenson of her meeting with Obama. “I thanked him and said that everyone involved in his campaign had been so gracious. I didn’t know what to say, so I mentioned that my daughter works for a federal health clinic. And he knew right away which program I was talking about. He said, ‘Oh that’s wonderful.’ ”

[DFL activist Jackie Stevenson], a feminist and Clinton supporter, had to admit this: “He’s very impressive.”

The report added that Stevenson had arrived at the event with another Clinton backer, and “as they were taken to their seats, people kept stopping to hug them and thank them for being there…. All of the other Clinton supporters received similar treatment.”

The St. Paul mayor added, “I think especially for women of my mother’s generation, it’s going to be very hard. They had waited so long for this (a woman in the White House). But I’ve spoken with a number of women like that in the last day. I think they’ll come around. You don’t spend your life fighting for women’s rights and then vote for Sen. McCain.”

That's right--no, you don't. You don't vote for McCain unless you want Bush's third term.

--WS

McCain and the Media Mancrush: Revisited

I first thought it had to be a typo...they had to have meant to say "blow up" because there is no way that John "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" McSame manages a "blowout" - didn't they?

Sadly, no.

The Politico - never known for keeping the mask in place anyway - actually gives an anonymous - so they can speak freely, you understand - source 'within the republican party' the chance to assert facts not in evidence, specifically that McSame could manage a 40 to 50 electoral vote blowout in November, and the stenographer dutifully scribed it down and let that be the lede in a two page article, before getting to strategists and pollsters who will actually allow their names to be attached to their quotes who are - shall we say - more cautious about their optimism. “There is a one in four shot that McCain can win an electoral majority in excess of 50 electoral votes, which by most recent standards would be a blowout,” Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio said. “Considering where the Republican brand is right now, that’s pretty phenomenal.”

One in four? Really? I'm skeptical.


In electoral-rich California, Obama would defeat McCain by seven points if the election were held today. This is significant because less than four months ago Obama lost the state to Clinton in the primary. The latest KTLA/Times poll shows a bleak landscape for McCain in the Golden State, where he has vowed to compete heavily, thinking he had a shot there because of the military presence.

But his reluctance to back SB 22, Senator Webb's 21st Century G.I. Bill legislation has drawn fire from veterans groups, from the American Legion to VoteVets, IVAW to Veterans for Peace. Even the Military Officers Association of America has taken a shot across his bow and told him thanks just the same, but they are in no mood to be lectured about retention rates.

Then there are the lobbyist problems. He has those in trump, and damned if they don't sully the "maverick" image. (By the way, I have long thought that there was a Ford joke in there somewhere - the Maverick was not a cool ride, it was in the same class as the Pinto...You guys are witty as hell - get on that, would ya? Leave 'em in comments.)

And on his home turf, in Phoenix, a fundraiser and joint appearance with the current occupant had to be moved from the Phoenix Convention Centerto to private residences in the Phoenix area, due to anemic ticket sales and the fear that anti-war protesters outside the convention center would outnumber attendees. (h/t Nicole Belle at C&L)

So yeah, I totally get where Davic Paul Kuhn was coming from with his thousand-word mash-note to the recipient of the media mancrush.....Totally.....Of course, when McCain manages that blowout, I will be seeking medical attention - for the plague of monkeys that will be flying out of my butt.

Sometimes the M$M makes me want to puke

Sorry. Sometimes I get so disgusted that I just can't muster the snark, and a rank condemnation just has to do, you know?

See, I don't watch those dog-and-pony-shows on cable that they are calling debates these days, because they aren't informative; they are phony, staged, go-for-the-lowest common denominator sideshows.

Need proof? Last night CNN reached back to the early 90's, and Bill Clinton and MTV and the "boxers or briefs" question that signaled the first sighting of the Horsemen of the Political Apocalypse on the horizon.

Last night, at the debate at UNLV, the last question was for Hillary Clinton, and it was asked by a student who wanted to ask about the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility. Instead, CNN had her ask Hillary if she preferred "Diamonds or Pearls?"

What. The. Fuck.???

People have to pay extra for access to that shit?

Via Crooks & Liars:

Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred “diamonds or pearls” at last night’s debate wrote on her MySpace page this morning that CNN forced her to ask the frilly question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

“Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN,” Luisa writes. “I was asked to submit questions including “lighthearted/fun” questions. I submitted more than five questions on issues important to me. I did a policy memo on Yucca Mountain a year ago and was the finalist for the Truman Scholarship. For sure, I thought I would get to ask the Yucca question that was APPROVED by CNN days in advance.”

And wouldn't the idiots at the Cloying News Network have just shit bricks if, instead of taking the bait, Hillary had said "Neither" and gone on to explain how Diamonds are mined and Pearls are harvested, and how the people doing the mining and the harvesting are performing dangerous jobs that kill many people every year, and making a pittance for it, while all up the chain of people standing on their backs and selling the damnable baubles and trinkets are making obscene amounts of money from the vanity of some individuals and the labor of others?