In another TV interview, Joe the Plumber (TM) called into question the very concept of progressive taxation. The man is an ideological visionary and I already see him as VP candidate on a Republican Palin/Wurzelbacher ticked 2012...

Posted by: ralphieboy | Oct 29 2008 19:18 utc | 1

well, there you have it. Fox knows that Obama will win the election. Murdoch has switched sides. How long will it take the faux viewers to realize they are now Obama supporters.

so, Waldo will be ecstatic. I highly recommend making bets on this election.

Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 29 2008 20:25 utc | 2

Well Sam the Plumber is only saying what many believe.

How, when, and by whom exactly Christian Zionism was invented is for me somewhat shrouded in mystery, but it is a Republican hallmark. The stew of conventional moral values, religious adherence, apocalyptic thinking, married to blind support for aggressive US foreign policy, thereby requiring reverence for any stooge or ally in or near the ME, has been generously offered up as a hallowed dish for a certain brand of sheeples to partake in with dogmatic and pseudo-terrified delight.

Everyone agrees that is is Librulls or Leftists who might or do support Palestinians (who cheered and danced on 9/11!) or make excuses for Terrorists or even hint at or state “America deserved it.”

Obama, in fact, gave a very weak and rather disgusting speech a few days after 9/11. (I can’t seem to turn it up..it seems to be gone...I’ll keep on looking.)

Now I don’t recall it exactly, gee I wish I had it under my eyes, but I say disgusting because he waffled around with the ‘terrorism is due to poverty and despair’ line - it is in some measure comprehensible, in a better world it wouldn’t exist, etc. In short craven BS dressed up in empty words. He couldn’t deny the official story, and couldn’t go with the REVENGE at all costs stance, so had nothing to say and should have shut up.

This well known article briefly describes Obama’s shift away from a pro-Palestinian position:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6619.shtml>electronic intifada

If Fox is defending Obama on this issue it is because Obama’s adherence to pro-plucky-Israel is considered solid enough (or because McCain is seen as a hopeless loser.)

So Sam/Joe is just a bit out of date, and/or doesn’t grasp that the gulf he sees between the 2 parties does not in fact exist.

(i didn’t watch the vids. and the friday lunch club link was a huge blank.)

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 29 2008 22:50 utc | 3

@dan,

Intrade Political 'Securities'

Percentage US$ Traded

Barack Obama to win 2008 US Presidential Election 85.5% $10.8M
John McCain to win 2008 US Presidential Election 15.1% $11.7M

via: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html#intrade>real clear politics

from: http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/trading/t_index.jsp?selConID=409933>intrade, the prediction market

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 29 2008 23:00 utc | 4

I thought the whole purpose of armageddon was to put an end to Israel so that true believers could ascend to heaven in the rapture. So is Joe the Plumber now saying that true believers don't want a rapture?

Posted by: JohnH | Oct 29 2008 23:26 utc | 5

It wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear that Joe the Phony Plumber is palling around with Hagee and His Crony Crowd of Phony Christians.

[birds of a feather aren't just flocking together, they are feeding off each other, too]

Posted by: Cynthia | Oct 29 2008 23:57 utc | 6

So Fox wants to make this election about whether Americans want socialism. We'll just have to accept their democratic wishes.

Posted by: biklett | Oct 30 2008 1:21 utc | 7

While I basically agree that "jewish democracy" would be a "fiction" (a cite? I don't doubt a possible definitive recent provenance, but would like to know more), the rest of your post here is littered with a hackneyed account "beyond borders" etc.

ASFAIK, sizable chunks of Israel's professed democracy are opposed to this crazed irredentism. Wandering through the archives of Haaretz proves my point.

My, b, provocative! And from a German! You saucy blogger, you.

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 30 2008 2:44 utc | 8

I hadn't realized I was channeling alabama in my previous post. An inimitable influence of his style? Mere subliminal parody? A stain upon the ongoing formation of superego?

I know not.

Perhaps a banning is in order!

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 30 2008 2:47 utc | 9

Tangerine,
"support Palestinians (who cheered and danced on 9/11!)". Don't believe it. From what I have read that video was a propaganda piece filmed years earlier. The only people caught dancing with joy that day were repatriated home to democratic Israel to relate it openly on TV.

Posted by: Fred | Oct 30 2008 3:04 utc | 10

i'm w/ralphie. palin/joe for '12. america needs a president someday who looks lie a skin head. from the comments @ raw story

What a strange grouping McCain's campaign is creating: Neo-Nazis and decedents of Holocaust survivors.

what weird times we are living thru.

Posted by: annie | Oct 30 2008 3:44 utc | 11

bravo, b, for calling things by their true names.
!

Posted by: rudolf | Oct 30 2008 4:12 utc | 12

Whether Obama wins or McCain wins, the right-to-life fundamentalists are moving their cases through State Supreme Courts systems, with some sobering and as yet unanticipated potential side effects.

If a fetus is granted "person" status, then by the "chicken and egg" argument, that extends a "personhood" back to the first neoblast, and then by rule of "reasonable doubt", every woman of working (childbearing) age, that is, every commuting woman, will have the innate right to use the HOV lanes, since two or more "persons" are presumed to be in the car. Would the police have to prove they're *not* pregnant?

What about female ironworkers, or emergency rescue workers? Would any female worker have the "right" to endanger a potentially neoblast "person" hovering in her womb?
Would *all* women in blue collar jobs be required to take weekly pregnancy tests?
Would their employers be likely to pay them for 8-1/2 months away from hard work?
Could any women of childbearing age become president, given the statistical risk?

That's humorous, but not so funny is the effect RTL_4NB's will have on healthcare, as every woman of working age will become a walking crisis-care patient, her hidden "person" ever in threat of this or that environmental side-effect, every medical exam doubled and redoubled, balancing this potentially harmful machine scan against the likelihood some disease might be missed without it, an army of lawyers drooling in the wings to cut their slice of the public healthcare pie for malpractice.

Which "Taliban" would we be talking about then?

Posted by: Tom Terrific | Oct 30 2008 4:22 utc | 13

Also! Joe the plumber will soon serenade us with country music.

as the saying goes

there is money in muck. Indeed.

Posted by: sabine | Oct 30 2008 4:59 utc | 14

Fuck Joe the plumber, and fuck Murdoch, arguably the most dangerous man in America. I don't give a fuck for the opinion of either miscreant. I thought I might have seen an opinion of President-elect Obama's ad, though. What's the matter b, still looking for those photos?

Posted by: waldo | Oct 30 2008 8:49 utc | 15

The 30-minute pre-recorded wank-fest? Brought a covert tear to my wife's eye, though she later decided he'd said 'nothing substantial.' As a scientific experiment we let the kids stay up to watch it. 6-year old daughter liked him - 'he's nice to children.' 3-year olds couldn't give a monkey's.

Obama is 'professional' - that was my impression. He's a natural. A good or a bad thing? There hasn't been anyone this presentable anywhere near the Oval Office since JFK, but since JFK was a foreign policy disaster I'm not sure that's a good thing. He didn't seem to tell any egregious lies apart from the one about 'an agressive Russia,' though his entire approach to foreign policy seems to be predicated on half- or non-truths (as summed up by his closer in the 'Live Obama Event:' "Together we can change America. Together we can change the world..." Please, can we just for once have an American president who wants to leave the world the fuck alone?

Waldo, do you actually believe (this is a snark-free question) that Obama will radically change the face of American politics? He really, when all's said and done, doesn't seem all that special, and if nothing else, that's what last night's little show rammed home. Not transformational, just an ordinary, competent politician.

Meanwhile, yes, he's professional and decidedly likeable, and not too professionally likeable, which is a positive surprise. He isn't a gibbering, slobbering husk like his opponent. As a foreigner I wish he'd shut up about God and changing the world. As someone who lives in the US, I suppose I'd rather have a prez who didn't scare my children.

President-elect, though? If he really was president-elect one would have hoped for a lot more than that slice of re-heated freezer-burned sloganeering. He can undoubtedly come up with the goods, but is he going to?

Posted by: Tantalus | Oct 30 2008 12:58 utc | 16

"Waldo, do you actually believe that Obama will radically change the face of American politics?"

Tantulus, that is my greatest hope. If ever there were a propitious opportunity, this it. It will, however, depend on the willingness of the American people to trust, support and assist the president. This will involve citizen action to counter the influence of not only the skulking neocons, dishonest politicians and the corporations and their PR minions, but also organisations like the NRA and its affiliations. Possibly a bigger task is the congregations of religious people reining in the shysters, liars and political operatives masquerading as religious figures who mobilise opinion that benefits ‘conservative’ forces with strategies based on fear, lies and superstition.

The web (already boasting more than a little success) is poised to be a powerful tool in the fight against those organisations, the misguided or dishonest who support them and against the MSM which is the main source for the propaganda of those bodies. It (the web) is the prime vehicle for the message and strategy of reformation of the political environment of the U.S.

The authenticity, honesty and integrity that is obvious and integral in the character of Barack Obama is the inspiration for this effort. The greatest effort required (and I know this no small ask) is that the cynicism and mistrust generated by the perverse politics and criminal activities of Gingrich, Kristol, Feith, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Gonzales, Woo, Cheney and the Bush family, their numerous partners in crime and their media whores (especially the ‘Dirty Digger’, Murdoch), be put aside, so that the hope and faith of humanity can be given a chance to once again flourish, so that we may once again believe in the honesty and goodness of our elected representatives and fellow citizens and so that we can do our part in assisting the president in realising his vision for a united, peaceful, prosperous and generous America.

Evil does not always triumph. Greed does not always win. One man can change the world but it is up to us to help him do it.

Posted by: waldo | Oct 30 2008 15:19 utc | 17

Waldo, you can't be serious, can you. You are describing Obama as though is some Supreme Being. Did you ever see the movie Sleeper? Your treatment of Obama is likened to the way the brethren treated the leader in that movie. They were so smitten and overwhelmed by him that when he perished in an accident they salvaged his nose in order to clone him back into existence...with Woody Allen performing the surgery. It was a hoot, just as your deluded view of Obama is a hoot. I prefer a world with no saviors because that would be a world with no victims needing salvation from the villains.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Oct 30 2008 16:02 utc | 18

Well, an abrupt and total ban on lobbying would be a start, but I haven't heard that from Obama. Think he'll do it?

If ever there were a propitious opportunity, this it. It will, however, depend on the willingness of the American people to trust, support and assist the president.

It's the 'trust' component of this statement that bothers me. He's hoping to be president. You shouldn't be required to trust a president (who's a public servant) until he's earned it - otherwise he's little more than a Roman-style dictator. I think that if Obama announced a programme of sweeping change - eg eliminating corporate and national lobbying - there would be plenty of people to support and assist in that. Would I trust him after that? Yes. To co-opt your catchphrase:

First earn our trust: then the rest.

Posted by: Tantalus | Oct 30 2008 16:02 utc | 19

If only

this little boy

Posted by: Hamburger | Oct 30 2008 16:36 utc | 20

Tantalus, I guess my expectations are unrealistic in comparison to your's. I would like to see a complete abolition of the legal status of corporations, let alone allowing them to lobby and finance candidates.

Speaking of financing candidates, Obama is on pace to double what Dubya raised in 2004. Through Oct. 15th, he has raised $640 Million. Wrap your head around that. McCain is about half that much, with $95 Million coming from public financing. McCain has a legitimate gripe about Obama and public financing. Why did Obama opt out....and in so doing, why is Obama now the leading recipient of Wall Street donations? Goldman Sachs.....yes, Hank Paulson's alma mater, has donated nearly $1 Million to Obama's campaign. And Waldo has the nerve to tell us to trust him? It's laughable. How can he be serious? Take a gander at the following link in regards to campaign finance.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.php?cycle=2008>Open Secrets

Posted by: Obamageddon | Oct 30 2008 17:08 utc | 21

Jeez, Hamburger, don't you hate to see children exploited that way......any way, for that matter? My brother did it with his children, except he's a diehard Republican. I think it's disgusting.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Oct 30 2008 17:12 utc | 22

people need to get off their butts & push for progress. Someone ca'nt or wo'nt do it with Obama in the WH may just be incapable of doing it.

Its kind of like dating. One girl wants proof your not a psycho, no STD, no other girl-friends, no wild partying, you have a job ... and the next girl loves the stupid stuff you do like she's been waiting for you all her life

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 30 2008 17:32 utc | 23

@Fred, the ! was supposed to show that it was fake.

the main culprit was Elisabetta Burba, an Italian journalist, with an article in the WSJ.

http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001194>op. j.

She was also involved in the fake Niger yellowcake story.

one link, probably not the best, but in the murk...

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2003_07/001693.php>Kevin Drum

I once read an email where it was claimed she was buddies with Michael Ledeen !

--------

Americans have become bogged down in trivial issues as distractions to keep them away from real politics. Neither political party has anything to offer, it is all the Society of the Spectacle, and getting ppl hyped up about homosexual marriage or abortion are blatantly cynical moves, planned and chuckled about. Actually, chuckle is a misnomer, it is howling laughter or suppressed choking giggles.

The aim is also to create divisions. Not let them eat cake, but let them agonize and radicalize over questions that actually have been settled, solved, long ago.

I don’t have the figures to hand, but Fundies have as many, or more, abortions as upper middle Dems - more because they are poor and don’t do the Doctor and sexual hygiene thing, etc. Unwanted or teen pregnancy is related, first of all, to socio-economic status, and access to health care. Moreover, in the US, unwanted pregnancy and abortion have sunk since the 60s, regularly, down and down - public health has done its job there despite much opposition; or societal changes, the drift, like-duh being pregnant in high school is kinda demeaning, means you will end up on welfare and can’t start a business, buy a lovely house with marble counter tops, etc.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf>PDF

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 30 2008 17:53 utc | 24

Curse you, hamburger... I can feel that photo corroding my defences... must banish emotion...

Obamageddon, I expect our expectations are pretty much in synch. I didn't say I expected anything to happen. Yes, an end to corporations being treated like people, and the rest of it. I was shocked by how much the 30 min slot enforced the message of politics as usual.

jony-b-cool, I'm just saying that when - and it's got to be when, right? - when he's in the WH, he has to put his shoulder to the shit pile first and prove he's not just another Pelosi.

Posted by: Tantalus | Oct 30 2008 17:56 utc | 25

@25
you have a good point about Pelosi. She did not live up anywhere close to my expectations. I think I over-estimated her without knowing enough about her. But I think Obama is putting a lot on the line already, if you get my drift.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 30 2008 19:05 utc | 26

No. I won't. I was gonna refute some of the hopes being expressed here but apart from the even more useless and destructive opening to be able to say I told you so, there isn't much else that could be used for.

If the obama thing does turn to shit though, remember that the failure isn't a failure of man, that it is impossible to have a society that isn't focussed on feeding off the weakest, because all humans are too selfish.

It should be seen as a failure of the process, that it is the amerikan model of government that is flawed and cannot ever deliver a power structure which puts the needs of all humans ahead of the desires of a select few.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 30 2008 20:46 utc | 27

If you said you were going to reveal a recent photograph of "three African-American males" would that conjure up the image in @20?

- the joy on the face of that dad with the camera, the responsibility and love in the closed eyes of the candidate, the whole-hearted embrace of the happy child - gets to me.

Tantalus, I'll return to my regularly scheduled emotions sometime after Jan. 20.

Posted by: Hamburger | Oct 30 2008 22:30 utc | 28

the joy on the face of that dad with the camera, the responsibility and love in the closed eyes of the candidate, the whole-hearted embrace of the happy child - gets to me.

Of course it does, as it does me....but then reality cuts through the fog, and you realize what's happening....an exploitation of your vulnerabilities. We could post similar pictures of Bush doing the same thing in his two elections, or Sarah with her children does the same thing for the Republicans, but that's not reality. It's superficial, and it's up to us as critical thinkers to put our emotions aside and view the situation rationally.

How many Pakistani Babies will Obama hug before he and Brzezinski bomb them to Kingdom Come? How many Palestinian Babies will he hug before the Israelies bomb them to Kingdom Come? I mean, let's face it, one of the reasons Obama chose Biden is because Biden is a self-professed http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3586542,00.html>Zionist and the best friend Israel has in Washington, or so he said in the Palin debate.

That's what Obamageddon means to me, and that's why I will not vote for the lesser of two deaths. I don't vote for death, period.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Oct 30 2008 23:05 utc | 29

hamburger:

And that little boy looks a lot like my son, so that's part of it (the real thing didn't pay that much attention to the infommercial, however).

Obamageddon,

I'm very much with Chris Floyd, Arthur Silber and you on this. Don't you ever want to just grab people and shake them, and yell: "what is it about dead children you don't understand?"

Posted by: Tantalus | Oct 31 2008 0:40 utc | 30

Posting is not working on the first topic...???

Posted by: vbo | Oct 31 2008 3:04 utc | 31

C'mon, this is an old snare..

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/images/highres_30014299.jpg

Posted by: A | Oct 31 2008 4:18 utc | 32

come on people, politicians have been kissing babies since the beginning. They do it because it works.

maybe not for you but for more people than not.

Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 31 2008 7:26 utc | 33

A, nice pic.

Here's a caption.

Mom, Uncle Adolph smells funny.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Oct 31 2008 12:08 utc | 34