I'm Just a Bill

You got a warrant? Yeah, I keep it in my shoe!

2008-08-25T07:02:00.003-05:00

"There's only two rules, and thats all... But don't ever forget them. Number one we enforce the law equally. Number two, any man caught taking a bribe gets his head knocked off by me."

Kos:

The more I read stuff like this (from Stephanopolous on Good Morning America Weekend Sunday), the more comfortable I am with Biden's selection.
I have never seen a vice-presidential candidate, in the announcement, come out with THAT KIND of ferocity. Usually, you see it a little bit later in the campaign – not at the announcement. But Joe Biden showed one of the main reasons that Barack Obama picked him. They WANTED a scrapper out there. They WANT a fighter out there. They know Senator Biden will be able to get UNDER Senator McCain’s skin. They’ve known each other for an AWFUL long time – more than 35 years. As one Obama aide told me yesterday: We know that Joe Biden can go out there with a 2-BY-4 if he has to.
There's really no faster way to my heart than having a Democrat go after Republicans with a (rhetorical) 2-by-4.

Biden's "The Guy" Afterall

2008-08-23T01:42:00.001-05:00

Well, it looked to be more than a rumor when the AP and CNN said it was confirmed, and then when ABC reported: Secret Service Headed To Biden's House, it was all but certain, but now we have this...

Obama's website:

So much for "I'm not the guy."

So be it. Let's get down to business then.

Sen McCain Fathered Illegitimate Bat Child

2008-08-09T22:19:00.007-05:00

Given all the attention they've gotten lately by their actually breaking a true story that's now dominating the news cycle, I'm kind of surprised I hadn't noticed until Digby pointed it out, that the Enquirer, the same magazine that for years has mercilessly pilloried every presidential hopeful including the Clintons, the Kerrys, and the Bushes, has been especially nasty to the Obamas this year, but one White House aspirant and family has been suspiciously missing...

Digby:

There must be some explanation as to why there have been no stories about Vicki Iseman, no drug stories about Cindy, no stories about McCain's legendary temper tantrums. Why?

That's a good question.

[Excerpt is Digby's, but the links are my addition]

Looking Good

2008-08-05T20:09:00.006-05:00

Despite several talking heads in the last few days gloating about how well McCain is doing in this or that poll, here's the Princeton Election Consortium using its meta-analysis of all available state polling to graph "all possible outcomes" if the election were held today (via Ezra):

That basically mirrors what pollster.com has been showing (note that Obama could literally cede every tossup state to McCain and still win):

What He Said.

2008-07-25T18:57:00.001-05:00

Hearing on Limits of Executive Power: Vincent Bugliosi

Indicted For War Crimes, Sudan Cites U.S. As Example Why It Needn't Comply

2008-07-21T09:23:00.004-05:00

Last week, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed charges for the first time against a sitting head of state, charging President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan with three counts of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes. Fareed Zakaria had Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations on his CNN show, GPS, to discuss the charges, which he called "a joke" and cited the U.S.' 2002 withdrawal from the ICC treaty as an example of why Sudan does not recognize the court's authority and will not cooperate with it:

ZAKARIA: Will your government mount a defense in the International Criminal Court?

MOHAMAD: We have no relation with the International Criminal Court. We don't recognize its authority. We are not going to cooperate with it.

ZAKARIA: But of course, you know that other governments that did not recognize the Criminal Court were still forced to extradite their leaders. I'm thinking of Yugoslavia.

MOHAMAD: No. I don't care about them. As far as we are concerned, we are not members. We have been told these days repeatedly that the ICC is an independent body. And so, OK, if it's an independent body, I am not a U.N. organ. We have full right to be part of it or not. And we choose not to be part of it, like the United States.

[...]

ZAKARIA: Are you worried that men like yourself, who are defending the regime and defending its actions, could be charged with complicity for genocide?"

MOHAMAD: "This is absolutely a joke. What complicity you are talking about? If you want to address genocides, then you have to address situations in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Gaza.…(full transcript)

Complicating the ICC's ability to pursue war crimes charges, as referenced in the interview by Sudan's UN ambassador, is President Bush's "unsigning" of the International Criminal Court treaty in 2002. Though President Bush has publicly denounced the killings in Sudan as genocide, the administration has soft-pedaled sanctions against the Sudanese government to preserve its extensive intelligence collaboration with Sudan, once a safe haven for bin Laden that has become a crossroads for Islamic militants making their way to Iraq and Pakistan.

The most major impediment to ending the genocide in Darfur has been China's longstanding diplomatic protection and economic support in return for its access to the 500,000 barrels of oil that Sudan produces daily. China, also not a signatory to the ICC treaty, was revealed in a report about a week ago by the BBC to be in violation of the UN arms embargo there through its export of weapons and training of fighter pilots.

Supporters of Barack Obama who would like to see the United States reembrace the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty, thereby reaffirming its commitment to human rights, have created a group on the candidate's website, my.barackobama.com.

WaPo's The Fix: Get To Know Sheldon Adelson

2008-07-18T04:33:00.005-05:00

Chris Cilizza:

Adelson, the third richest man in America according to Forbes magazine, has in recent years turned his attention and, more importantly, his wallet to American politics. Adelson has donated more than $229,000 to various state and national Republican committees and candidates over the last three elections but his real influence is felt in the contributions he has -- and continues to make -- to 527s and 501(c)(4)s that engaged in public education/political efforts

Adelson is one of the prime movers and major backers of Freedom's Watch, the independent, conservative-aligned group expected to play a major role in House and Senate races this year. He has reportedly donated $30 million to fund the groups activities, but because Freedom's Watch is a 501(c)(4), it is not required to make public its donors.

Although Adelson has lurked in the shadows for years, two new profiles -- one by the Wall Street Journal (subscriber-only, boooo!), the other by the New Yorker -- bring him into sharp relief. ...(more)

Adelson sees his role in the coming fall election as "the cavalry coming over the hill, bugles blaring." Look for him to play a significant role financing groups that will try to smear Obama and other Democrats in the months to come.

He is also the financier behind the Defense of Democracies attack ads in the FISA fight and is also very active in Israeli politics, as Cilizza goes on to explain, he "started a free daily newspaper known as Israel Hayom that is widely seen as a vehicle to re-install conservative Benjamin Netanyahu as the country's prime minister."

More links:

TPMmuckraker: NJ: Big Money for Pro-War Group Comes from Casino Mogul
TPMmuckraker: NJ: Casino Mogul Funded Anti-Dem Surveillance Ads
WaPo: Casino Executive Contributes $1 Million to Gingrich Group
RightWeb Profile: Sheldon Adelson
SourceWatch Profile: Sheldon Adelson
Mother Jones: Sheldon Adelson: The Right's White Knight?

Where the Hell is Bush?

2008-07-03T00:20:00.003-05:00

My video response to Matt's video (the post below).

Joie de Vivre

2008-06-27T19:32:00.019-05:00

I know I haven't been posting too much lately. Been taking a bit of a break from the rat-race since Obama locked up the nomination.

Had to interrupt the hiatus for this though. This is absolutely my favorite video ever. No other even comes close.

Where the Hell is Matt? 2008

HQ version here at wherethehellismatt.com.

I love everything about Matt and his videos, especially this latest one. It's just beautiful on every level. It's virtual heroin and I'm totally hooked on it.

And the song is fantastic. Composed for the video, the song is Praan by Garry Schyman, and the beautiful voice is Palbasha Siddique, whose story and how Matt's girlfriend Melissa stumbled upon her is worth checking out. The lyrics are a Bengali translation of the poem "Stream of Life" by Rabindranath Tagore:

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Perfect.

Sen Hillary Clinton Brings it on Home

2008-06-07T22:57:00.003-05:00

Well done. As much as I will admit I was predispositioned to not be easily sated by whatever she said just because it was days (weeks, imho) late in coming, Sen Clinton "nail'd it."

Jed: Tom DeLay is a Klansman

2008-06-07T00:08:00.006-05:00

Jed Report:

And he hates America. Unless he proves me wrong, that is.

How else do you respond this?

Oh, and if you though Jed was bad, check Hunter:

Unless he proves me wrong, Tom Delay lures children into his van with candy, gasses them to death with bug spray, and uses their powdered bones as an aphrodisiac when making love to all the animals at the San Antonio Sea World.

omg. I'm not even going to try to photoshop that.

Rep Dana Rohrabacher's Obsession

2008-06-06T10:50:00.006-05:00

TPMmuckraker's Kate Klonick:

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine was on Capitol Hill this morning to testify to the House Subcommittee on International Relations, Human Rights and Oversight, about his report on the FBI's role in detainee interrogations, released two weeks ago.

While some saw the hearing as a long-awaited chance for a serious examination of the torture techniques at Guantanamo Bay, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, took an almost frat-boy glee in the torture details. In a statement of just 13 minutes, Rohrabacher managed to use the phrase "panties on [someone's] head" eight times. ...(more)

That does make me wonder just what all kind of stuff did Dana and his friends do when he used to run around with his Taliban/mujahideen buddies?

So Much for Hillary Clinton's Word

2008-05-31T09:48:00.002-05:00

Today's the day for the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting that will attempt to disenfranchize all of the voters who believed what the DNC (and the candidates including Hillary said) and stayed home because they were told the election wouldn't count.

Hillary Clinton, 10-11-07:

"I signed the DNC pledge not to campaign, not to spend money in any of the states that did not comply with the rules established by the DNC.... It's clear this election they're having is not going to count for anything."

Josh Marshall makes the same point I did above ...

If the DNC were now to turn around and decide to make these contests count after all, these non-participating voters would be disenfranchised no less than the people who did turn out would be if the DNC sticks to the rules and doesn't seat any of the delegates. The simple fact is that large numbers of people, acting on accurate knowledge and in good faith, decided that there wasn't a real primary being held in their state on the day in question and on that basis decided not to participate.

Now, the question is how can we really know how many people didn't show up because they were told it wasn't a real election? There is of course no way to arrive at a direct answer, at least no practical one. But this post by Eric Kleefeld, which on a statistical analysis by Gregory P. Nini and Glenn Hurowitz, makes a very strong statistical case that as many as one million voters in Florida and probably more than a half million voters in Michigan did not vote who otherwise would have if they had not believed that the results would not be counted. Take a look.

Fox News Jokes About Killing Obama

2008-05-25T15:52:00.004-05:00

First it was Huckabee, then Hillary, and now it's just a big joke.

This is someone named Liz Trotta from earlier today who first referred to Obama as "Osama" and then laughed that they should both be killed. Here's a longer clip for more context. H/T Scarce.

Update: Liz Trotta apologizes:

That's exactly what needed to be said. Good for her. The Clinton campaign would do well to watch this. Words like "I am so sorry" and "I sincerely regret it and apologize to anybody I've offended." go a long way to diffuse this kind of thing.

Hillary's Asinine-ation Comment and Her Non-Apology Still Burns

2008-05-25T05:53:00.011-05:00

I've resisted weighing in on Hillary Clinton's outrageous comment on Friday for several reasons. I was really angry about it and didn't want to say anything brash. Now, after two nights of sleeping on it, I have to say I'm even more pissed about it.

Here's her outrageous comment that started it all:

Here's what the NYT Editorial Board (the same one that endoesed her) calls her "tedious non-apology" apology for it:

And here's Keith Olbermann's must-see response.

Although I do think K.O. went a little overboard, I must say I do agree with almost every word, except for the pretense that it is "unforgivable." If she would have just apologized for it to all those that she so offended instead of offering excuses it would have made the world of difference to me, and I'm sure many others. She owed Obama and his family an apology just as much or more than the Kennedy family, and she needed to actually use the words "I'm sorry" or at least an "I apologize" without any excuses, not an "I regret if ..." That was just simply pathetic, and made me even more offended than before.

I'm not even going to get into the ramifications of her invoking "assassination" into this race except to say that since she had repeated the "assassination" comment more than a month earlier, her excuse that she said it this time because the "Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy" is yet another lie from her. She was saying it long before. That and I'll say that THE most important context that Hillary and her supporters obviously fail to grasp is the fact that Barack Obama is the most popular black leader this country has ever had who has not (I'm tempted to add a 'yet.' ugh.) been assassinated, and on that matter Keith Olbermann totally speaks for me. Please watch it if you already haven't.

I still have plenty to say about it though. I think it was hands down the most damaging campaign gaffe ever in our country's history, not just to her campaign but to the entire Democratic Party. It's her macaca moment only worse. Just her using 1968, the year of the riots in Chicago as an example for staying in, is telling.

Hillary Clinton was still a Goldwater Republican in 1968. Her own campaign website says she was "a Goldwater Girl." She interned for the war-hawk Republican congressman Melvin Laird that year and attended the Republican National Convention in Miami. She also claims to have been present in Chicago during the Democratic convention that year, saw the riots and 'smelled the teargas.' She wasn't inside the convention (back then even party officials couldn't necessarily get inside the convention, thus why they created the superdelegates, not to overturn the will of the voters, but to get party officials and Dem insiders into the convention), but somehow watching the riots helped turn her from a Republican into a Democrat.

So, no doubt she remembers full well the affect all that had on party unity. Of course, that year the Dems lost.

If she takes this all the way to the convention I seriously doubt there will be any unity, and that will be all her fault, not mine and everyone else who doesn't support her's. It will be the fault of Hillary Clinton and her doomsday-cult of supporters that seem hellbent on following her all the way to ~~Jonestown~~ Denver instead of doing what every other remotely sensible Democrat like I had to do when my candidate, John Edwards, had the decency to bow out as soon as it became apparent he couldn't win.

I can't wait to see what, if anything, the Sunday morning talkingheads have to say about it.

Update: Jake Tapper has more: The Fallacy of Clinton's 1968 Analogy

Is Barack Obama a Muslim?

2008-05-24T02:33:00.006-05:00

Matt points to this site that provides answers to whether or not Barack Obama is a Muslim.

On that thought, here's another site that answers questions regarding a collection of quotes from two books written by Senator Barack Obama that have been circulating the internets.

HUGE Obama Campaign Turnout in Portland OR - 50 to 75,000

2008-05-18T23:27:00.003-05:00

75,000 ATTEND OBAMA RALLY IN PORTLAND

Here's the dispatch from NBC/NJ's Athena Jones... Some 75,000 people flocked to Portland’s waterfront Sunday to watch Barack Obama speak, making it the biggest rally the campaign has held to date. Thousands stood on the lawn, dozens watched from boats and from the bridge stretching across the Willamette River. A few kayakers held their paddles and tried to keep their kayaks straight as they watched the candidate, who stood on a makeshift platform. ...(more)

YES, WE CAN!

Oliver North, Fox News' Appeasing & Emboldening Revisionistorian

2008-05-18T02:21:00.007-05:00

After lauding Oliver North for his new book that apparently has more pictures than it does pages (No doubt North’s picture-book tells a much different story than the truth-laid-bare photos and accounts from an award-winning unembedded photojournalist like Dahr Jamail, but I digress), Sean Hannity asks North for his opinion on whether the President was right to compare the want to hold diplomatic talks with Iran to the appeasement of Nazis in the 1930’s.

Oliver North: "As you know, I’m the history guy at Fox News Channel, right? I’ve done this WWII series – 52 of our episodes about WWII. Had it not been for Chamberlain going to sit down with Adolf Hitler and try to cut a deal in Munich, WWII might never have happened, but it emboldened the dictator. That’s what the President said yesterday in Jerusalem. And a little reminder today, a shot across the bow here at the NRA, when John McCain got up and said, ‘You cannot have these kinds of unconditional, no preconditions discussions, with despots and dictators’ - dead on the mark."

For someone who should have spent the better part of the last two decades making license plates for 35¢ a day, it's astounding he would dare touch this topic. This is the guy who oversaw the arms for hostages deal with Iran in 1985 (among other crimes), right in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war in which the US was actively and openly arming and supporting Saddam Hussein. Ollie North didn’t just talk with Iran at a time they were our enemy in a proxy-war, he actually helped to arm them, bypassing Congress by violating the Boland Amendment to help fund an illegal war in Nicaragua.

Lacking even a shred of credibility, Fox News’ “history guy” is to the truth in the historical record what Dick Cheney is to gun safety. He shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the subject, and anyone who believes a word of what he says about it is a fool.

Negotiation is not appeasement and there are zero parallels between simply opening up a diplomatic dialogue with Iran and the capitulation to Adolf Hitler in the Munich Agreement. It’s a ridiculous assertion, especially considering that the Bush administration itself has negotiated with Libya and North Korea, yet Iran’s previous offers to put everything, including its nuclear program, on the table and peacefully negotiate have been completely ignored even after Iran had been important ally of the coalition against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Oliver North, just like John McCain and other conservatives, don’t even have a clue what they are talking about. Apparently no one in this administration ever thought to ask Bush’s own Sec. of Defense, ~~Neville Chamberlain~~ Robert Gates, for his opinion:

We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with respect to the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them. If there’s going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can’t go to a discussion and be completely the demander with them not feeling that they need anything from us.

Exactly.

The Arizona Republic: "McCain Not a Maverick"

2008-05-10T07:41:00.008-05:00

McCain's home state paper:

In Tight Senate Votes, McCain Not a Maverick
When it matters the most, he seldom bucks his own party

Over the years, Sen. John McCain has publicly condemned Republican Party leaders and occasionally voted against the GOP on selected issues.

But an Arizona Republic analysis of his Senate votes on the most divided issues in the past decade shows that McCain almost never thwarted his party's objectives.

The presumptive Republican nominee arguably cast the decisive vote 14 times since 1999 to ensure Republicans got their way, and he had five other close cases where his vote may have made a difference, Senate records show. By comparison, McCain effectively handed Democrats a win on roll-call votes four times in the same period. On one of those occasions, Republicans could still have won if Vice President Dick Cheney had cast a tie-breaking vote.

The numbers are based on a review of Senate roll-call votes since 1999 that ended in a tie or were settled by one vote. The closest votes in that period included momentous, partisan-charged legislation, such as President Bush's tax cuts. More often, they were procedural votes on deal-breaking amendments to bills that would otherwise pass.

They partly reflect how rarely Senate votes come down to a single person, even though the chamber has been narrowly divided on party lines most of the past decade. But the votes also suggest that when McCain broke from Republicans, others often joined him, keeping the votes from being so close.

And his chronic absence in the Senate has seldom come in the most divided debates, the records show. ...(more)

Toast

2008-05-07T12:11:00.006-05:00

I guess this is Hillary's reward for buddying up with Rupert Murdoch.

Why Rev Wright is No Big Deal To Obama Campaign

2008-05-02T05:29:00.002-05:00

Lest we forget 1992.

Excerpts from "The War Room" documentary of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. Well worth your time to check out the entire thing if you haven't seen it before.

Compared to what Bill Clinton faced - allegations, with incriminating tapes, of extramarital affairs and leaked DOD documents re: draft dodging - Wright is nothing.

Add to that this from Kos:

43 percent of respondents are concerned about the 71-year-old John McCain's close ties to George Bush.

36 percent have concerns about Clinton's political opportunism, and 27 percent are concerned about Bill Clinton being back in the White House.

34 percent have problems with Obama's "bitter" remarks and 32 percent give a damn about Jeremiah Wright.

As good as Bill Clinton's 92/96 team was/is, and they were/(are?), they are getting their asses handed to them by the Obama camp by every metric. Obama's campaign is the Clinton 92 team 2.0 + the Dean Machine 2.0.

I know I've never seen anything like it.

The Vast Clinton Wing Conspiracy

2008-05-02T05:02:00.006-05:00

I took a haitus from posting here lately for a variety of reasons like a job change, but mostly just because the extended primary season has been sucking the life right out of me. Anywho, this news really pisses me off. Sidney Blumenthal, current Hillary Clinton campaign advisor and former senior advisor to President Bill Clinton, has been utilizing the VRWC for his sources to spread smears of Barack Obama.

Peter Dreier breaks the story at HuffPo:

Sidney Blumenthal Uses Former Right-Wing Foes To Attack Obama

Former journalist Sidney Blumenthal has been widely credited with coining the term "vast right-wing conspiracy" used by Hillary Clinton in 1998 to describe the alliance of conservative media, think tanks, and political operatives that sought to destroy the Clinton White House where he worked as a high-level aide. A decade later, and now acting as a senior campaign advisor to Senator Clinton, Blumenthal is exploiting that same right-wing network to attack and discredit Barack Obama. And he's not hesitating to use the same sort of guilt-by-association tactics that have been the hallmark of the political right dating back to the McCarthy era....(read on)

So now we have proof (and read it. There's proof) that the Clinton machine is behind the smear attacks on Obama, from Wright to Ayers and on and on.

Still, I'm not worried. I firmly believe there is no possible way Hillary Clinton can win the Democratic nomination without fracturing the party, and if she does manage to steal it I hope for a schism. Let Rush's dreams come true for all I care if that happens. Perhaps we'll get a viable third party out of the deal in the long run and honestly I'm starting to think a one term McCain Presidency saddled by solid Dem majorities in both houses looks good compared to her.

It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.

Clueless John 'More Wars' McCain

2008-03-22T14:14:00.004-05:00

Here's a mashup I made for the new website 'StraightTalkMcCain.com' on McCain's recent statements alleging that Iran has been offering support to al Qaeda in Iraq.

Center for American Progress:

The Maverick Makes It Up
This week during a trip to the Middle East, McCain severely undermined his frequent claims to be "the one best to address a national security crisis" by repeatedly stating that Iran was supporting al Qaeda in Iraq. McCain claimed that Iranian operatives were "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." He insisted that it was "common knowledge...that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and coming back into Iraq from Iran." McCain's confusion over Iran and al Qaeda puts him in lockstep with the rest of the Bush administration. As the Washington Post notes, "The last five years have produced ample evidence that American leaders were woefully ill-informed about the country they came to rescue." [...]

THE FACTS: Though Iran is 90 percent Shiite and al Qaeda is a Sunni group, it is not inconceivable that some aspects of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are supporting some aspects of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), or that AQI members have ever crossed the border into Iran. However, there is simply no evidence to support McCain's claim that Iran is "training" AQI in Iran. Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno stated last July, "We don't see any evidence, significant evidence, that shows that [Iranian-controlled] groups that are funding and providing arms to Shi’a extremists are directly related to al Qaeda." In a CNN interview on Wednesday, Gen. David Petraeus backed away from CNN's Kyra Phillips's statement that "it stands firm that Iran is funneling weapons and supporting al Qaeda." Petraeus said, "We're concerned very much about the lethal accelerants...that do come from Iran," but also emphasized that "the flow of foreign fighters and of suicide bombers that help al Qaeda typically is through Syria." "The point is that John McCain’s misstatement is typical of conservatives, who have, through intentionally deceptive language, constantly tried to elide the differences between groups with different goals and ideologies in order to create the illusion of a united Islamofascist enemy.

"WHERE'S THE STRAIGHT TALK?: After press coverage of McCain's gaffe, his campaign issued a statement claiming the senator "misspoke and immediately corrected himself." In an interview, McCain himself insisted that he "corrected it immediately," and that he "just simply misspoke." However, as video proves, it was not until Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) whispered a correction in his ear that McCain corrected his mistake. Moreover, McCain conflated Iran and al Qaeda at least three times, not including another time last month -- hardly a case of "misspeaking." By Thursday the McCain campaign had reversed course, insisting McCain did not misspeak at all. McCain advisor Max Boot asked Thursday, "[W]hat gaffe?" and insisted, "There is copious evidence of Iran supplying and otherwise assisting Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni terrorist groups (including Al Qaeda central)." Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser, told the New York Sun, "There is ample documentation that Iran has provided many different forms of support to Sunni extremists, including Al Qaeda as well as Shi’ia extremists in Iraq. It would require a willing suspension of disbelief to deny Iran supports Al Qaeda in Iraq." ...(more)

The Media Attacks Obama

2008-03-21T15:16:00.008-05:00

Fox spews it, and the rest of the media picks it up and runs with it.

MoveOn (via email):

Media watchdog group Media Matters has chronicled how FOX spent months trying to smear Obama by associating him with Reverend Wright's words. Greenwald's new video shows how the attacks successfully migrated to the mass media—Tim Russert repeated Sean Hannity's smears virtually word-for-word!

Meanwhile, the big networks all but ignored Pastor John Hagee, whose endorsement John McCain was "honored" and "proud" to receive. Hagee says Katrina was God's punishment for homosexuality, Jews are to blame for anti-Semitism, and Catholicism is the "Whore of Babylon" and "a cult."

It gets worse. At the same time they relentlessly reported on Obama's pastor, most network journalists also ignored Rick Parsley, a televangelist who McCain called his "spiritual guide" when accepting his endorsement last month. Parsley has said:
I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed...
Ignoring McCain's spiritual advisers while going after Obama's is what we expect from FOX, which is more a Republican mouthpiece than a real news organization. But when real news outlets follow FOX's lead, we have to hold them accountable. Otherwise, FOX will continue to elevate smear after smear against Democrats into the mass media in 2008. Click here to see the new video and sign the petition.

The attacks on Obama are so bad that this morning Fox anchor Chris Wallace called the network out and Brian Kilmeade even stormed off the set (in part) because of it. Just take a look at this unedited version of a sermon by Obama's pastor Wright and compare it to what all of the networks have been playing over and over:

There's a war going on, our current administration is corrupt and drunk with power, the future of the planet is being ignored, our economy is teetering, and all that's on the tv is what Obama's pastor said. Our media is corrupting the entire electoral process. Enough is enough.

Jim Cramer: "No! No! No!" Don't Sell "Bear Stearns is not in trouble!"

2008-03-17T19:30:00.005-05:00

Jim Cramer, March 11, 2008, reading "Mad Mail":

Cramer:
Peter writes, 'Should I be worried about Bear Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my money out of there?'

(screaming, of course) No! No! No! Bear Stearns is fine! Do not take your money ou.. -- This is rea.. -- If there's one takeaway other than the plus four hundred (garbled). Bear Stearns is not in trouble! I mean if anything, they’re more likely to be taken over. Don’t move your money from Bear! That's just being silly! Don't be silly!

When Cramer said that Bear Stearns was still trading at over $60 a ahare.

The news, six days later:

JPMorgan to Buy Bear Stearns for $2 a Share
(Reuters) JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Sunday it would buy stricken rival Bear Stearns (nyse: BSC - news - people ) for just $2 a share in an all-stock deal that values the U.S. investment bank at the centre of the credit crisis at about $236 million. [...]

Bear's stock closed on Friday at $30.85, valuing it at $3.5 billion, after tumbling 46 percent that day. Shares in the fifth largest U.S. investment bank hit a record high of more than $171 in January 2007...