In a state race in Texas, a candidate is using a great, great meme against a Repugnicant incumbent, in ad called "John Davis has a Sugar Daddy."  The S.D. in question refers to Bob Perry, of the mega-corporate homebuilder Bob Perry, who bankrolled the 2004 Swiftboat vets ads against Kerry, and who (some in TX hypothesize) is now bankrolling the "pin Fannie Mae on the Donkeys" astroturfing campaign on Youtube. 

There needs to be a "Sugar Daddy" registry, where we can list the names of prominent McCain sugar daddies....we can make them famous, my friends my friends.

And furthermore:

In terms of the reforms that are needed outside the State of Alaska, you can bet that you pesky liberals and your disrespectful questions and "gotcha" hangups about Supreme Court legal trivia that happened before I was born, much less in second grade --when I say "pro-life" I am talking about a special moment of being, which is not to be confused with any moments of being once the child is grown and able to be cannon fodder with respect to our enemies in Afghanistan or Eye-rock or Eye-ron or Spain. I mean, the statute of limitations on "pro-life" runs out at age 18, as far as contributions to our military-industrial economy and job creation, because an eighteen-year-old no longer has a right to life then, because of the profits of the larger markets that are needed to shore up the economy.

Dunno who or where this chick  is but she’s young and brilliant, composing fake vlogs “for internal use only”  of Sarah Palin and posting them on Youtube.   She has an Inuit sidekick who also comments.  The line about ripping out the bloody entrails of animals and peering into them to read the future of the tribe ….astoundingly sharp and funny artist at work here.    This is a series of several vlogs, very funny, but as serious as a heart attack, too.

THIS IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN A CERTAIN V.P. CANDIDATE'S LIES. THIS IS WHAT THE ROVE-BOTS DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT. From the Folo blog, which is Mississippi lawyers, mostly. They are currently watching the Republican struggle in court to print illegal ballots to try to throw a tight Senate race there. From poster NMC: "Reasons for voting for (or against) a presidential candidate to me almost never relate to their religious views, problems within their family, or personal lives. There are times when it could matter (but only as one of a series of data points and no more).  We are all to some degree or other flawed, without exception.  Whether we care enough to know what is going on in the world is one thing that matters to me. Here’s one that matters even more:  Where a candidate stands on the constitution and the rule of law.  Barack Obama made a speech this week that got very little attention (far less than, say, the question of whether Sarah Palin hid her pregnancy).  It was a profoundly important policy speech by a nominee for president that draws a line, with clarity and courage.   It should factor into your decision, either way.  From a Washington Post story about the speech: But Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade, said captured suspects deserve to file writs of habeas corpus. Calling it “the foundation of Anglo-American law,” he said the principle “says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?’ And say, ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong person.’” The safeguard is essential, Obama continued, “because we don’t always have the right person.” “We don’t always catch the right person,” he said. “We may think it’s Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it’s Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president.” Obama turned back to Palin’s comment, although he said he was not sure whether Palin or Rudy Giuliani said it. “The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It’s because that’s who we are. That’s what we’re protecting,” Obama said, his voice growing louder and the crowd rising to its feet to cheer. “Don’t mock the Constitution. Don’t make fun of it. Don’t suggest that it’s not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It’s worked pretty well for over 200 years.”

THIS IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN A CERTAIN V.P. CANDIDATE'S LIES. THIS IS WHAT THE ROVE-BOTS DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT. From the Folo blog, which is Mississippi lawyers, mostly. They are currently watching the Republican struggle in court to print illegal ballots to try to throw a tight Senate race there. From poster NMC: "Reasons for voting for (or against) a presidential candidate to me almost never relate to their religious views, problems within their family, or personal lives. There are times when it could matter (but only as one of a series of data points and no more).  We are all to some degree or other flawed, without exception.  Whether we care enough to know what is going on in the world is one thing that matters to me. Here’s one that matters even more:  Where a candidate stands on the constitution and the rule of law.  Barack Obama made a speech this week that got very little attention (far less than, say, the question of whether Sarah Palin hid her pregnancy).  It was a profoundly important policy speech by a nominee for president that draws a line, with clarity and courage.   It should factor into your decision, either way.  From a Washington Post story about the speech: But Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade, said captured suspects deserve to file writs of habeas corpus. Calling it “the foundation of Anglo-American law,” he said the principle “says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?’ And say, ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong person.’” The safeguard is essential, Obama continued, “because we don’t always have the right person.” “We don’t always catch the right person,” he said. “We may think it’s Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it’s Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president.” Obama turned back to Palin’s comment, although he said he was not sure whether Palin or Rudy Giuliani said it. “The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It’s because that’s who we are. That’s what we’re protecting,” Obama said, his voice growing louder and the crowd rising to its feet to cheer. “Don’t mock the Constitution. Don’t make fun of it. Don’t suggest that it’s not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It’s worked pretty well for over 200 years.”

1. How do you tell the difference between a Republican and a pickpocket? The pickpocket does not charge a service fee or interest, or raise the APR if you protest the service fee. 2. How do you tell the difference between a Republican and a drunken sailor? The drunken sailor spends his own money on his friends, buying a round of drinks and whores. The Republican spends your money on his friends, buying a round of Middle Eastern petroleum-rich nations. Plus whores.

Geez, it's like I'm seeing the finest minds of your generation totally hostage and hog-tied by the Republican oppo dudes, who are the real pigs with a penchant for lipstick. Somewhere, Karl Rove is laughing his ass of at how successful his disinformation campaign has been at totally throwing you alleged Obama people into disarray. You are being held hostage by one of the oldest propaganda techniques in the book. Stop screaming about how dishonest they are, and go to work for your guy. They know our weakness: our penchant for words over action. Maybe we need to step away from the blogs and go report to campaign offices and help out. For every lie they tell, they need help in getting the true message out. If you write words, write words that advance the cause. Obama gave an important speech about habeas corpus yesterday. Here, it seems to be all Palin, all the time. Which is exactly what Rove & Co. want.

Marcy Gordon filed a story with AP yesterday about Nevada regulators closing of a Nevada bank, the Silver State Bank, which one Andrew McCain, son of John McCain helped to run into the ground. Andrew McCain resigned from the board in July...ah, that must be what the folks in bidness call "vision" or "foresight." Here's what it says: Andrew K. McCain, a son of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, sat on the boards of Silver State Bank and of its parent, Silver State Bancorp, starting in February but resigned in July citing "personal reasons," corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show. Andrew McCain also was a member of the bank's audit committee, responsible for oversight of the company's accounting. The younger McCain, who is the chief financial officer of Hensley & Co., the beer distributorship of which Cindy McCain is chairwoman, is the Arizona senator's adopted son from his first marriage.

Little ditty that has been running through my head lately: Oh Lord, won’t you bring me a ANWR pipe line ? Cheney’s had his gold rush, I’d like to git mine. Worked hard all my lifetime, those lobbyists of mine, So Lord, won’t you bring me that ANWR pipe line? Oh Lord, won’t you buy me the whole RNC? Booking for Oprah is trying to find me. I wait for delivery each day until three, So oh Lord, won’t you buy me the whole RNC ? Oh Lord, won’t you bring me a channel on TV? I’m counting on you, Lord, please let me see: Brit Hume and Whatsusface Kondracke on their bended knees. Oh Lord, just buy me a channel on TV! Everybody! USA! Oh Lord, won’t you bring us the whole USA Pastor Rick and me, well, we must make amends, We’ll field-dress the liberals in their latter days, So oh Lord, won’t you give me the whole USA? USA! USA! USA!

A columnist for The Times of London pronounces Palin apalling, partly because she inquired what the Vice President "does all day."

Well, if the precedent that V.P. Dick Cheney has set in the last seven years carries over into a new administration, the Vice President basically spends his days gutting the Constitution of the United States of America, and makes the world a safer place for no-bid contracts and massive infusions of discretionary cash to foreign governments.  His elves work merrily all the day, composing executive orders for the prez, who is not smart enough to think it all up himself.  Labor unions?  Gutted.  Privacy?  Your life is now their open book.  Transparency?  Government now has the right to occlude any act of theirs they choose. All through the elfin magic of lawyers with Sharpies. Accountability?  In Cheney's alternative universe, you now have no recourse to courts and the rule of law.  And when the day's work is done,  the skids have been greased for funds in the public coffers to be transferred to private hands.   This is why Cheney needed for there to be a "war."
This is why the Republican fight so hard to extend the "horizon" of war.  This is why Cheney used his daughter as a human shield to advance his cause:  he wants to bomb Iran.

So the real reason that Palin is apalling is this:  if she were to become vice-president, or,  heaven forfend, president. . . according to her "record" of "service" we could reasonably expect to see the executive banning of books, the executive banning of dissent, the executive banning of transparency, carried out to the specifications of interest groups who wish to see these conduits for the flow of federal money opened even wider.  

Look closely at her "record" in Alaska; it's a crystal ball into where the Republican party would love to go. 

They are trying desperately to re-brand themselves as the party of "change" which is just a Trojan horse word to hold onto their power.   The big mystery is how they chant "Country First" and rope all the poor whites into offering them their children to go to their wars which are a simple diversionary tactic for the main event:  the transfer of public money into private hands, without taxation.

Here's the link to the 1965 RAND Study that Alex Abella (see previous post) says drove the failed U.S. policy in the Vietnam War, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: New Myths and Old Realities," by Charles Wolf.


http://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3132-1/

When McCain says, "I know how to win a war," it's important to take a look at who's advising him on fo-po,
and where they came from.

The word "counterinsurgency" came out of a series of Vietnam-War-era studies conducted by RAND for the Defense Department, examining the concept of "limited" warfare.  There were numerous studies, including some by anthropologist who predicted that the U.S. was going to lose because those who are defending their own actual soil have an emotional stake and fight harder. (Is this sounding familiar yet?)  But the study that won out was by Charles Wolf, "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency:  New Myths and Old Realities."  He argued that if one just kept pouring money and "dedication" into the effort, along with paying the locals money to betray each other, offering amnesty programs, and uh, sort of mess with the food supply until you get compliance, you could win.

Well, we all know how that turned out.

For more, see Alex Abella's 2008 book, Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire, page 175 or thereabouts

Eric Ackerman takes a very helpful factoid from Jane Mayer's book, that Ronald Reagan, back when Cheney was but a young lad bein' a-tutored at the Gipper's knee, signed a secret executive order that overrides Plan B, if the prez and the veep are annihilated simultaneously. The order is still in existence and not even Homeland Security is entrusted with its content, since their brief is apparently to spy on us.  For more on the background:

http://www.slate.com/id/2195384/