Edwards Gains Ground, as Obamarah and Billary Slug it out...And On the Other Side? Cue the Circus Music, the Left Behind, and the Swimming Monkeys!!

Sunday: Life after the morning shows?
Planet Earth on Discovery Channel.....
The world outside seems pretty big sometimes.... and the pathological bullshit going on in here is sort of unbearable in the face of this:



These guys can stay down for up to 30 mins!
Forget the tiny pandering of the animals with the biggest egos on this planet. we've got nothing compared to the survival skills that are evolving every day out there on Planet Earth...Pick your nature show, folks, and sit right down for a heart warming HD journey into how small we really are in the scheme of things. Maybe I'm getting old, and maybe its that I resisted the new technology for so long, but high definition really is the new hallucinogenic for people of a certain age.

And that drowning feeling? Well, after long strange dreams about swimming in the tropics with old ex-friends who I hope to never see again, I was brought back to Mitt Romney by Frank Rich, who shines a light once again on the should-be criminal ball-dropping of the pundits and press in this country. The frustration of that on this icy morning, chipping away at the path, and fuming about how a swift boat attack is all that could stand between us and a Romney presidency, is just too much for my weakened sensibilities!
Surely, its our fault because we give them the ratings, but then, we also don't have much choice, do we? Why would it be so wrong to bring back some type of fairness doctrine? What are they so afraid of if they are so right...?

So, we watch the same old corpses, and hope for an explosion by the likes of Larry O'Donnell, who has been as much as pooh-poohed this week for his temper last week, as opposed to looking at what it was that he said that was just so unseemly.
According to Frank Rich in today's New York Times:

Pushed over the edge by his peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s sermon on “Faith in America,” Mr. O’Donnell branded the speech “the worst” of his lifetime. Then he went on a rampage about Mr. Romney’s Mormon religion, shouting (among other things) that until 1978 it was “an officially racist faith.”

That claim just happens to be true. As the jaws of his scandalized co-stars dropped around him, Mr. O’Donnell then raised the rude question that almost no one in Washington asks aloud: Why didn’t Mr. Romney publicly renounce his church’s discriminatory practices before they were revoked? As the scion of one of America’s most prominent Mormon families, he might have made a difference. It’s not as if he was a toddler. By 1978 — the same year his contemporary, Bill Clinton, was elected governor in Arkansas — Mr. Romney had entered his 30s.

The answer is simple. Mr. Romney didn’t fight his church’s institutionalized apartheid, whatever his private misgivings, because that’s his character. Though he is trying to sell himself as a leader, he is actually a follower and a panderer, as confirmed by his flip-flops on nearly every issue.

Polite chatter. That's what gets me. Its politeness that got us where we are now...so, for Christ's sake, lets at least look at the truth before we install another idiot president in place of the current one. The words that we shall not speak are the ones that need to be spoken, so lets look at the skull and bones underpants of this thing. The Iraq war shows us that if we keep quiet in the runup to a disaster, it can be nearly impossible to disentangle ourselves from the ensuing mess.

Racism; I keep hearing it mentioned as a cautious point on why we shouldn't support Obama. He might not be able to win the general. But that caution belies a disconnect with what is really going on out there.
Its evident in how the press and other candidates on both sides underestimated the Oprah-Obama factor. Its evident in the condescending way with which Oprah, who is arguably a spokeswoman for not only African Americans in general, but American women and her fan base, which spans larger than most of us realize, was dismissed as a pop-icon with no real weight in something as heady as an election. Think again. The woman who decided to turn her back on trash talk, and who got the country reading again, is more powerful than maybe Jesus, and probably, at least as powerful as the M$M's script for this thing. At least she knocked things around a bit and made the contenders show some of their real colors. This is not Springsteen or Bon Jovi rallying the kids; Oprah is another animal altogether and she speaks to a different place in the psyche of real people who are struggling to get by. Why? I really don't know. Call it a mysterious phenomenon; but don't disregard it.

Oprah is a populist who has taken chances for her convictions, and as much as she turned her back on the wrestling masses that Jerry Springer gave a stage to for ratings, she still has been a forgiving force who finds the common ground that represents every person in every trailer park, every upper east side matron, and those in-between. Its uncanny how she has built on that and has managed to remain above the fray in her objectives, and its not something that anyone could have predicted. But, I would think that people who watch this stuff for a living might be a little more aware of who Oprah is.

Even as Oprah represents the black thing when she goes into her hey girl! ghetto voice or does her MLK I have seen the mountain tone,she crosses a line that white America cant cross; not even Hillary as the wife of the "first black president," or whatever he was....but as she crosses those lines, she does it as if white and brown America are right there with her. She makes people of all colors warriors in a battle that is more intellectual than anyone realizes. She is talking about racism, which is absolutely knee-jerk visceral in those who grew up in places where it was ingrained, but she does it as if we were all in the battle together against what might even be something even within ourselves. What works about this is that she has a tone of self-forgiving and understanding, which makes it all more understandable and acceptable as something that we all need to change. I say all of this as someone who doesn't much watch Oprah and who is not much of a fan, unless she has on a specific subject that I want to see.

According to Rich, though, the worry about ingrained racism shouldn't be that much of a problem for Obama:

Race is certainly a part of the groundswell, but not in a malevolent way. When I wrote here two weeks ago that racism is the dog that hasn’t barked in this campaign, some readers wrote in to say that only a fool would believe that white Americans would ever elect an African-American president, no matter what polls indicate. We’ll find out soon enough. If that’s the case, Mr. Obama can’t win in Iowa, where the population is roughly 95 percent white, or in New Hampshire, which is 96 percent white.

I’d argue instead that any sizable racist anti-Obama vote will be concentrated in states that no Democrat would carry in the general election. Otherwise, race may be either a neutral or positive factor for the Obama campaign. Check out the composition of Oprah’s television flock, which, like all daytime audiences, is largely female. Her viewers are overwhelmingly white (some 80 percent), blue collar (nearly half with incomes under $40,000) and older (50-plus). This is hardly the chardonnay-sipping, NPR-addicted, bi coastal hipster crowd that many assume to be Mr. Obama’s largest white constituency. They share the profile of Clinton Democrats — and of some Republicans too.

And that sticky religion thing? The things that we might prefer not to mention? Oprah and Obama both come off as pretty heavily religious, but they are not exclusive or freaky, like the underpants that Romney and his folks wear:

“Church free” is the key. This country has had its fill of often hypocritical family-values politicians dictating what is and is not acceptable religious and moral practice. Instead of handing down tablets of what constitutes faith in America, Romney-style, the Oprah-Obama movement practices an American form of ecumenicalism. It preaches a bit of heaven on earth in the form of a unified, live-and-let-live democracy that is greater than the sum of its countless disparate denominations. The pitch — or, to those who are not fans, the shtick — may be corny. “The audacity of hope” is corny too. But corn is preferable to holier-than-thou, and not just in Iowa.

I don't know about anyone else, but the idea of an Obama candidacy seems sort of nice to me. I don't want another Clinton crammed down my throat and I want real chance. I'm willing to, at least, pretend that there is some choice and that big corporations and oil interests don't control everything. Whats the worst thing that can happen? Hasn't it all happened already?

In an absolute reversal of the prevailing news blackout on John Edwards, this week's Newsweek calls John Edwards The Sleeper and The Road Warrior, and talks about how he really could win Iowa and become a contender in the big show:

But it's worth keeping in mind just how wrong the media echo chamber can be when it comes to predicting winners and losers. At about this time four years ago, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was the press-anointed darling who could seemingly do no wrong in Iowa. Dour John Kerry was scorned by reporters as the should-have-been who had blown it and couldn't possibly win. But on caucus night, Kerry wound up the victor—and Dean wound up screaming. Reporters were left to wonder what they had missed. One story the talking heads may be missing this time: just how badly John Edwards hates to lose.

I'm so tired of being told who my candidate is gonna be. I'm so tired of the likes of Chris Matthews and his ilk bleating on about how Hillary cant possibly lose...so, why bother even voting? It seems to me that as the networks have a responsibility to not give results too early on election day, they should try to act like there is a choice and try to encourage people to vote. The problem with them is that their responsibility is to the shareholders and not to the process. Every time I get the feeling that I'm being told to not bother any longer, I send Edwards some money. I honestly think he is the best one for the job at this time, and I honestly think that he has a chance. I also would like to make Chris Matthews and Tim Russert wrong (even though they have started to change course already...cue Sam Seder's backup beep!)
Its just nice to see a little coverage of Edwards, as if he were there and an entity in this race, and its also a nice article. It acts as if he is some new guy that no one knows about...but the background never gets old in a race like this.

Huckabee is on the cover of the New York Times Magazine this week and if you needed any further evidence of his particular brand of insanity, just look to the third paragraph for Huckabee's joy at the endorsement of Tim LaHaye, the author of the Left Behind series and game. I wrote about the game a year ago here, and, really, if Huckabee believes in the wrathful Jesus of the Left Behind series, and that our kids should be playing a game that allows them to ride at the side of the angry Jesus and kill those who were not raptured up to heaven (your choice of automatic weapons!)...you know, the left behind...kill 'em all! This is when I start to wonder what the fuck is going on in the republican party; what could they be thinking?

Chris Matthews played a video today of a fake Huckabee commercial that is supposedly posted on Andrew Sullivan's site. I didn't see it there, or on YouTube, but I am looking for it.

On the Iowa Trail.....Larry O'Donnell Tells it Like it is in the Church of Mormon; and Maher too.......

Godspeed to John Edwards. With the Iowa Caucuses offering probably the most fair picture of middle Americans (albeit, jaded by this rather heady process that allows most of them to meet and talk with the candidates,) barreling towards us, and Barack and Hillary neck and neck, with only one mistake possible between the two of them, John is well within the margin of error, with a good network already in place in New Hampshire. I really believe that Edwards is the only electable candidate that isn't under the sway of the powers of the ego/career trap or the big power of the ruling corporations that quake at the idea of Edwards raining on their parade. For God's sake, when are Americans going to look at the hard facts and cast a vote that serves them and their fortunes, instead of voting on a vague impression taken from media bytes being thrown about by the M$M?


I would be very interested in seeing Barrack Obama win this thing too; as opposed to Hillary....BUT...I don't know if he has enough political experience to get things done in the office, and whoever gets this one has to hit the ground running. At the same time, I like the idea of ideals being tossed about; I liked the West Wing and I can easily see Obama starring in the next generation. But I get this red flag warning, strobing G-R-I-D-L-O-C-K. Maybe it will be that way to an extent anyway, considering that the war will become ours on inauguration day, and we are doing nothing to make it clear that there is a laundry list of criminals here, and their crimes are being glaringly ignored. If we don't go after the criminals now, we deserve what we get.
Can Obama handle the fallout of 8 years of the Bush crime syndicate?

To me, Edwards holds the key to the undoing of the insane policies that have been sliding into place since Reagan. He also doesn't care anymore what they say about him and what they do to him. He has been through it all and acts with the air of someone who is just concentrating on being himself, and screw the handlers and bullshit. Edwards still has a chance and I hope to god that he has the support in Iowa among people who are weighing the actual policies of the candidates.
And to be absolutely sure of this, it looks to me in hi-def, like Edwards has recently freshened up his botox, as has Chris Matthews. Whatever it takes, I'm for it!

On the other side, its clown-time all the time...its never over.
Rudy cackled through Timmeuh Russert's, "tough as they get..." according to Chris Matthews, questioning (NOT!) on Meet the Press. Every time he was asked about his scandalous ongoing rip-off of NYC during his tenure, he cackled hysterically, like a crazy man. But then, Matthews talking about cackling, is a bit of pot-kettle-black, and his ranking of who is a tough interviewer....well, these guys are so involved with each other's asses that its not worth getting angry anymore. Oh, and by the way, Matthews thought that Romney's not-Mormon, religion speech, was the best speech of the campaign! Huh? Hasn't he heard Edwards? Obama?...hell, even Oprah reading off cards, in her MLK-black voice, was better than that. He made no sense and he came off as disingenuous.

Lets get real about the church of Mormon and Mitt Romney's bullshit speech that has already gotten too much airtime by now. Mormon: There is a self appointed leader to whom,it is purported, Jesus himself appeared in 1820, and subsequently an angel dictated the Book of Mormon to him. Thus began a cult of Jesus-freakishness, in which Jesus is considered the creator of everything, replacing God, except to get a little help or direction from him here and there. There is some sort of planetary influence a la Scientology, a disgusting amount of sexism and racism, and the belief that those who don't practice this particular form of Christianity will not go to heaven. The notion that the followers were sent from heaven where they previously resided with god, and that they are following a predestined path in order to gain experience for their return to heaven, removes basic responsibility from them of having to question their assumed authority about all things Jesus; the rest of us be damned...unless we want to get baptized into the cult...then I guess we're saved, only to be explained away as some wandering sheep that have found their way back to the fold; as part of the grand predestined design, of course...like, to teach the rest a lesson...?

Mitt says that America's founders didn't mean to separate church from state THAT much, but at the same time he says that he will do his best to keep the two separate, except that...he is a devout Mormon, and so he must have believed the particularly disgusting teachings that he no doubt followed in his early 20's, such as the belief that blacks are from Mars, while Mormons are from Venus! yup....This group has a dirty history worth looking into, and old Mitt, by proclaiming his devotion throughout the years, particularly naming times of his life that he was still a Mormon, has made it clear who he is...exactly clear.

Larry O'Donnell hit this straight on yesterday on McLaughlin. I was so relieved to see someone able to express the disgust that I have been feeling about the fundamentalism coming from sectors of the republican party, that I started to count the minutes until this showed up on the YouTubes. Larry O'Donnell has the first comment, and its really the only thing you need to hear on this joke of a debate on religion and what the candidates intend to do with it.


I'm not a religious person, but I respect the urge in others, if it gives some comfort. Its certainly nice to have some belief and community in this world; something that I personally lack. I just cant see anyone with the devout belief that a certain group of people are going to heaven (coming from heaven, even,) and the rest of us are going to hell, (or are from hell,) as capable of being a leader to us all. Can one just set those sorts of beliefs aside? I didn't get the feeling from old Mitt's speech that he is able to separate anything from his religion.

...Oh and, he is no JFK...nope, not at all....


Bill Maher on Mormonism


Next up: Huckabee the circus freak...

c/p on Brilliant at Breakfast

People for the Ethical Treatment of Ann Coulter...Fund Raising and Hype...Carville, Clinton, Barak, and Pelosi...The Beat Goes on....

You know the thing about people who abuse and kill animals? Do I have to go into the psychological implications of this? Do we want another psycho in the white house?...As if he has a chance anyway....
This group is really rich...really fine...and the array of interesting tidbits that keep coming out of them are just like little gifts on an otherwise cloudy day.
I probably shouldn't be so empathetic as to think of what it might be like for a dog to travel in a crate on top of a car for 12 hours ,"enjoying the fresh air" to the point where it craps all over the car. It was an Irish Setter no less, and the story seems to indicate that the Romney's left it up there for the whole drive. I don't even go 10 miles with my dogs inside the car without stopping and walking them around a little. Oh, I suppose that if its a long trip, like up to Cape Cod, I might stop just 2 times, but I walk them and give them water. Even when I was a little kid, my Mom was like that, and she is from a farm in the mid-west and from Massachusetts with a hunter/commercial fisherman brother, so its not a cultural animal treatment thing. Its an empathy thing. And what of the hundred kids crammed in that vehicle without a rest stop? Or was it just too much trouble to let the dog out when the kids needed a bathroom break? Did the kids even get a bathroom break before old Mitt had to hose down old Seamus? Sheesh! (and luckily ABC news has provided us with an article that studies what it might be like for a dog on the roof of a car traveling 55 MPH for 12 hours...thanks guys...I'm sure that no animals were harmed in the making of this article...except for the mice used in place of the dog!...Warning: this article made me actually nauseous.)
Is this who should be deciding what to do with any living thing...much less soldier's lives and the care of the citizens of this country??...nope, I think thats pretty much that for Mitt...Bye bye, been good to know ya...and too bad we didn't get to go into the Mormon thing more; I was really looking forward to it.

Ive been receiving alot of emails from different groups and candidates...first, while still reeling from the letter written on behalf of felon Scooter Libby by James Carville and Mary Matalin, about how much they pity his family and whatever...No sooner had I worked myself into a froth over that when I got a Carville email with the subject line "Lemmings," referring to the republicans who are being sent to the slaughter in the November '07 elections. Looking at his lizardly picture and trying to expunge my mind of the image of him and Mary in bed, I was thinking about the Hillary people and anyone else who looks at this guy and thinks that he is really a democrat or someone who maybe has the best interest of this country, and what we supposedly stand for, in mind. What a disgusting way to end the origami fun-filled weekend.
On Monday, Barak wanted to know what inspires me, but attached to my inspiration story getting published on his website was some mention of a donation, and he is not my candidate, so...
Tuesday Bill Clinton wanted to know if I was "Having Fun Yet?" Because presidential campaigns should be fun! So, on the heels of the Sopranos spoof, whats in store? Oops...better chip in to find out. Donate today to see some more of that great film quality work that they put up on YouTube last week....Hilarious!!
Wednesday I was engulfed with fury at MSNBC and all the other major news organizations for giving that psycho Anne Coulter any more time than the initial 15 minutes she deserved so many years ago. Chris Matthews Hardball report was all about the "Smoking Hardball Plaza show" in which Chris wished M-Ann and Elizabeth Edwards had been oil wrestling naked..but more on that later. Oh whatever, more on that now!
I was disgusted by how flirty and slimy the drooling Chris Matthews was with the boyish Ann Coulter, as she tried to justify her continuous shilling for publicity on the back of tragedies that she couldn't possibly understand. Some day it may come to her, and some day she may suddenly see herself as she actually looks, with that horrible snooty tone in her voice and that pseudo-intellectual bullshit ivy league thing; someday she may just realize that it all mean nothing if you are a horrible, cold, person. But Chris Matthews, well hes all over the map, and he is studying himself pretty damned closely all the time. His wife must have kicked him in the balls for that little performance, because he tore out of the gate in the next couple of shows to discredit La Coulter and her way of doing things. I blame MSNBC, Dan Abrams, and Matthews himself for pandering to the lowest common denominator in trying to get ratings. If you want better ratings then get some other sharp, humorous guys on air, who are like Keith Olbermann. Hey, heres an idea, how 'bout Marc Maron? How 'bout even Rosie O'Donnell? How 'bout just about anyone but the same old crap that you've been doing over and over....
By yesterday Michael Moore was shilling for Democracy for America and asking "whats the problem?" ( oh and, go see his movie to find out!!...Im all for that!) If you have to be shown in easy dramatizations and diagrams...The problem?
Well, the problem that us lemmings seem to be unable to inspirationally put into words in all of these emails is that we are in this fucking war until April '08 at the soonest. This is what I'm hearing...and I'm mad. They mean that the pullout wont even start till April '08, realistically. It will then take months and months, and probably years into forever to play out fully.
Is it possible that the republicans, the lying, thieving lot of them, could possibly parlay the clear democratic inaction into so much disgruntled nonsense that they manage a third party switcheroo again? Is it possible that just in the delivery of the news on their intentions in this matter, that they are fucking up yet again?
Well, this is what Ive heard: if we were to go for impeachment, we really don't have the votes, so we would be doing what we are doing with hearings and investigations right now. The impeachment and also the criminal charges come later....yeah, but why all of the CRAP from the likes of Pelosi, who sent me a mail a couple of weeks ago after not blocking the surge that said something like "VICTORY!" in the subject line.
We made a grand statement that day...but for god's sake, why aren't these people screaming this from the rooftops, leaking pictures and video, linking the war and the republican votes FOR THE SURGE to so many ills right here at home?
Jesus, if the health care system is lacking, and we know that the veterans administration is all but unable to handle what they've got coming home now, what will we do in the years to come with all of the surge soldiers who have been thrown on the fire in the interest of a plan which is clearly not working?
How is it that Carville even has a job with Hillary or is even hired as a democratic pundit when he is clearly married to the other party? How come he has access to my email address? If he wasn't such a scary creature I would say to keep an eye out for him to end up as the next Chris Matthews in pundit-land.
It is so disingenuous for these characters to email and continually ask for money while trying to parse the situation in cheery terms. It all looks the same to me and I dont even want to know what they have to say...its all the same and in the end they want more money to do the same. Thats why I am supporting one candidate and my own causes. I wont give any money to the Democratic party, nor will I spread donations around so that our beautiful field can explore itself.
I have an idea. lets all pool our money and hire Pixar (uh-oh, is that Disney?...well, some other big company like that!) to make a film that shows in easy animation with no subterfuge, what is going on in the world and what it means to each of us. No one with a career, ego, or financial stake in any of this should be allowed to participate. The we should pay to place it in all airplanes, at the end of all checkout counters instead of the stupid Swanson cooking tips, and on big screens from Times Square to the Mall of America and back again. The we should merchandise it to MacDonalds and Starbucks...This is gonna take big money; more than Die-Hard 6!...Money talks, and we'll need lots of it folks, but maybe less than Bloomberg would need to win the primary, much less the election. The war will only be won in simple terms with pictures and singalongs....
Oh, and we'll need our own NASCAR team too! But it will have to be cloaked in the movie theme to be allowed into the hallowed halls of the Marlboro team or the Disney team...wouldn't want to make a political statement at a sporting event. The large corporations own that arena...not much of a political statement anyway.


Today I got a mail from what I thought was the Kucinich people asking for a donation in return for an Impeach Cheney cap. But no, it was a donation request that also offered a FREE IMPEACH CHENEY CAP which asks within itself at the People's Email network, or some such, for a donation in order to make caps for people who want them free, and to cover your's...but you don't have to. Heres the problem: besides that I dont wear caps, the thing seems to be purple and it has a pink question mark after the IMPEACH CHENEY part. Purple is a bad choice all around. Im not a hater of purple at all, but it doesn't go with everything and you're not gonna find alot of truckers wearing that particular shade. How bout basic black and let's lose the question mark. How about IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST!!
There you go.

I have alot of pictures of the fantastic origami weekend and also of the more fantastic Gay Pride Parade in NYC, and I will be posting them tonight or tomorrow depending on how my other work goes (and the fact that this Dell's cardreader is now not working, and I just don't have the time to search for the USB for the camera(s) involved.) have I mentioned lately how much I hate Dell, and how sorry I am that I gave them another chance?