politicalpartypoop.com

I found this picture while reading a post on THIS blog.
Now I’m hardly a playa hater, although I am not destined to be a wealthy, famous or infamous individual, it is increasing disturbing to me that human beings today seemingly more and more each passing day give such reverence to “star” figures in society.I totally understand that this is not new; I’m just astonished at these fawning star crazed Obama crowds, drooling over a man that has yet to accomplish a damm thing.
I have always believed that the loftier the status you grant an individual that you indeed become a lesser individual on the inside.

I remember reading a slightly disturbing article, at least to me, some time ago, here is a sample:

Thomas Jefferson’s famous “defining of America” phrase, “All men are created equal,” is not entirely accurate. While all Jefferson intended to state was that all people should be treated fairly with human rights (which is true), the statement itself has connotations which cannot be accepted. There are certain people who deserve more respect and authority than others. Society needs to know that there are boundaries and limits. We need to give our seat on the bus to an older person out of respect. We need to stand up for sages, elders, and even parents as they enter the room.If “everyone is equal,” then we run the risk of making no one equal. We will produce youngsters who laugh at the elderly and disobey their teachers and principals because they will feel “equal” with authority figures.

 If “everyone is equal,” we will lose respect for others since we are as equal as they. We will only be concerned with our own selves which will inevitably make it impossible to attain holiness. Holiness means refraining from indulgences and one cannot do that if he is self-centered.

Through revering parents, we learn to have a sense of awe. Once a person integrates respect for his parents into his personality, this attitude will serve as a springboard for revering God.

The words of some egotistical Baptist preacher, the words of someone who demands respect from his followers, give reverence to me because through me there is God!

Maybe some of you may agree with this premise, but I never have. As much as I loved and respected my parents I certainly was not “in awe” of them.
I respect the power, love and guidance that I believe God provides me.
God created all of us to strive to be “great” to use the gifts God provides us to be the best that we can be. In my estimation that can’t happen if we hold other human beings to such a lofty mental, emotional and psychological status.

I am mindful that my faith in God provides me some measure of mental and spiritual nourishment and comfort.
If as we Christians believe, that we are all indeed children of God then I believe that no man is above me.
Yes, I would grant a seat to an elderly person or treat a person of authority with respect. However that respect however must be earned.

Respect is certainly due to those who have through various educational, economic and societal achievements, personal sacrifice, and personal hardship or sacrificed a part of themselves to improving society seeking no public adoration.
Politics is an ego driven endeavor. Anyone who goes into politics claiming to want to “change” society for the better always does so with an agenda and their legacy in mind.
There is nothing noble about creating “change” in a society on the backs of the people and the forced extortion of taxpayer revenues.

Now if you had shitty parents and they never taught you any morals or basic human respect then you then are screwed.

I have never been able to comprehend individuals’ rabid obsession to singers, rappers and rock stars, movie icons and sports figures. I cringe at both parents and children’s’ obsession over that Hannah Montana girl.
I certainly grant the respect earned by some for either the work they have done and contributions they have made to the greater society at large, but to hold someone up to such a lofty status as these individuals have for Obama when he has accomplished nothing calls into question the mental stability and the self esteem of our overall society.

As I look at this photo and see these people clamoring over Obama as if he is some freaking messiah, I honestly wonder, where the reverence and adulation comes from.

Obama will never make a payroll; he will never create a single job, he can’t single handedly rebuild New Orleans, cure the world of terrorists or Cancer, he will never be able to prevent a single rape or murder, he will never be able to heat anybody’s home, educated a child or accelerate our exploration into space.

There are two things I know about Obama; 1) He campaigned and raised money for a white racist segregationist who still refer to black folks as Niggers. 2) He in his recent revelation that he will support granting drivers licenses to illegal Mexicans, he will pander to any racial demographic to get votes.

I was watching again the TV series Rome, and back in the day, the people subjected themselves to the worship of countless idols and gods, in one moment praying for spiritual healing and good fortune, the next praying for the death and dismemberment of their enemies.
We obviously still worship false idols today. You would think that with the advancement of our society and the speed of information this society would be impervious to hollow showy rhetoric or politically preachy oratory.

Seemingly everyday this world creates another fraudulent leader, another faux religion to worship, a new scheme to instantly provide wealth or weight loss or a new instant but certainly temporary singing sensation.

Far too many of us are looking to others for greatness and psychological fulfillment, tis a very sad time in this exceedingly crazy world indeed.

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From Michelle Malkin

Today’s birds of a feather entry: Race-hustler Maxine Waters is set to endorse Hillary Clinton in a conference call today. Maybe Hill will put a little Selma-style flavor in her voice today to celebrate. I came to know and loathe Waters when I lived and worked in Los Angeles. Here’s the column I wrote about Democrat pandering to Waters in August 2000. It still stands today:The Party of Maxine WatersShe is one of the most self-serving, hate-filled, race-obsessed politicians in America. The Democratic Party doesn’t just embrace her. It kneels at her feet.

Los Angeles Congresswoman Maxine Waters reigned supreme this week when Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman appeared before a black audience to “explain” himself. The Connecticut senator’s sins? Opposing affirmative action and supporting educational vouchers that benefit minority children. Lieberman, once a courageous voice for equal opportunity, has now been schooled: Pander hard and keep your dissenting thoughts to yourself.

After throwing a hissy-fit in the press because she had not been personally consulted about Al Gore’s veep picks (”I never had the opportunity to talk to anybody about it before he was decided on as the vice presidential choice,” she whined), Waters gave her benediction.

The skilled publicity hound dissed and then kissed Lieberman for the cameras; a cheek-to-cheek photo of the couple appeared in newspapers across the country.

Read the rest

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From Moonbattery

Lacking a functioning government to defend them from foreign incursions, American citizens are literally under siege:

A felony conviction and subsequent deportation didn’t stop Manuel Enrique Morales from crossing the border to return to Mesa, where police allege he and others terrorized victims with an assault rifle in a series of home invasions.

This is hardly unusual. In neighboring Chandler, Arizona, serial rapist Santana Batiz Aceves was finally caught recently. He preyed on children in their homes, and had been deported twice. Erik Jovani Martinez was deported the year before he shot and killed police officer Nick Erfle in Phoenix last September.

This time Morales will sit in jail for awhile. When he gets out, he’ll be deported. Soon afterwards, he’ll be back in the US with his assault rifle or whatever else he cares to bring across the unguarded border.

But Lettuce McCain and the Democrat candidates aren’t too worried about it; they have plenty of heavily armed security.

Also check out these posts as well: Congress Blows Our Money on Pointless Eco-Indulgences and Subprime Crisis as Racist Oppression

“using the liberal media to promote a parasitic, self-pitying attitude that makes success impossible.”

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Article: Is term ‘Canadian’ used as racist word?

Is “Canadian” the new black? Perhaps – that is if you’re a racist speaking in code.Recent revelations that the term “Canadian” is being used to replace racist names for black people have got a Texas assistant district attorney into trouble and have left others wondering what exactly it means to be labelled a Canadian in the American south.

Long derogated as weak-kneed liberals with lax laws and funny monopoly money, Canadians have carried a negative connotation in certain regions of America – but not as a replacement for the N-word.

Earlier this week a columnist with the Houston Chronicle uncovered an email from Harris County assistant district attorney Mike Trent who, in a congratulatory note to a junior prosecutor, used the word “Canadians” to describe blacks on a jury.

Trent wrote of the prosecutor in a 2003 email: “He overcame a subversively good defence by Matt Hennessey that had some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant and forced them to do the right thing.”

Trent’s email remained unchallenged by colleagues who received the email, despite there being no actual Canadians on the jury.

But when Trent’s office came under scrutiny this month over an unrelated incident, the email was unearthed, leaving Trent open to accusations of bigotry.

Those accusations are grounded in allegations that the use of “Canadians” was in keeping with the definition listed on an online racial slurs database that defines “Canadian” as a masked replacement for the N-word.

In his own defence, Trent said he honestly thought there had been Canadians on the jury and did not understand the negative connotation of the word.

Others, including the columnist with the Houston Chronicle initially thought the reference to Canadians may have been a misspelling of Californians, who are themselves seen to espouse many of the same liberal values as Canadians.

Despite the controversy, Henry Wells, a Texan and media relations officer with the Canadian Consulate General in Dallas, says he has never heard the term used in a racial manner before.

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A Catholic advocacy group charges the sports TV network ESPN has failed to respond properly to a graphic rant by anchorwoman Dana Jacobson in which she “attacked Jesus Christ.”Jacobson, reportedly intoxicated, was speaking at a celebrity roast in Atlantic City, N.J., when she unleashed a profane tirade, saying, “F— Notre Dame,” “F— Touchdown Jesus” and finally “F— Jesus.”

“Touchdown Jesus” is the popular moniker for a mural on Notre Dame’s library featuring Jesus raising his arms.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue said he pressed ESPN on the issue and received an e-mail with an unsatisfactory statement by Jacobson.

The statement said, in part, “My remarks about Notre Dame were foolish and insensitive. I respect all religions and did not mean anything derogatory by my poorly chosen words.”

Donohue contended the response “fails on several counts.”

Read the rest here if you really care…

But my take is…..

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
and no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.

Go right to the source and ask the horse
he’ll give you the answer that you’ll endorse.
He’s always on a steady course.
Talk to Mr. Ed

People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day
But Mister Ed will never speak unless he has something to say.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
and this one’ll talk ’til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?
Well listen to this.
“I am Mister Ed.”

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Remember the possibility of a McCain John Kerry ticket?
From The Daily Oakland Press [2004]:
McCain has said he would not run with Kerry, but last month he renewed speculation when he was asked on ABC’s “Good Morning America” whether he would consider running with Kerry. He replied, “Obviously, I would entertain it.”

From The Hill:
“Look,” McCain said on the radio show, “I was approached by Democrats, sure. I was approached by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to run as his running mate in 2004 and I rejected it out of hand.”Laughing, McCain added, “It was the smartest thing I ever did.”
**********
John McCain Hillary Clinton Best Friends

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Sen. Barack Obama’s longtime friend and spiritual adviser trashed the memory of a missing and presumed dead American teenage girl, according to church publications reviewed by WND.Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the controversial minister of Obama’s church in Chicago, cited the case of Natalee Holloway’s disappearance in Aruba in complaining about what he sees as the media’s bias in covering white victims of crime over black victims.

“Black women are being raped daily in Darfur, Sudan, in the Congo and in Sub-Saharan Africa. That doesn’t make news,” Wright said in the August 2005 edition of Trumpet Magazine, a publication of his Trinity United Church of Christ.

But, “One 18-year-old white girl from Alabama gets drunk on a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and ‘gives it up’ while in a foreign country, and that stays in the news for months!” he added. “Maybe I am missing something!”

READ THE REST HERE

Oh some of you white folks are gonna want to throw shit at your computer but what the hell.

Dude is 100% correct. Every time some pretty little white girl goes missing the media and the general public goes into a frenzy.

Don’t get me wrong, any child that goes missing is a tragedy, but the fact that this society, focusing on the media, does not treat missing black children the same as missing white children is a crime.

I know what you are thinking, and you would be wrong.
In case you folks did not know, Mrs. Snoop is white, thereby I have a number of white nieces and nephews, my daughter is half white, and I have a white blonde blue eyed grandbaby that is as much a part of me as any DNA confirmed blood relative.
And the thought that one of my grandchildren would be treated differently simply based on their skin pigmentation would simply be wrong.
I don’t love any more or less based on skin color, never have, and never will, it frankly is not part of my personality.

Although I read WND often, this article and many others on Obama seek to paint him as black and as Negro as possible, doing the Clinton’s dirty work.

I’m not an Obama fan by any stretch, and have no plans on voting for him. Also I’m not like a great number of black folks who see the possibility of Obama becoming president as some sort of feather in my Negro cap. Whether or not Obama is elected or whether or not any black candidate is ever elected president does not make me more of a man, will not make me any prouder to be black or raise my racial self esteem, it is a silly premise.

However as these stories come out, it tis simply another reminder that far too many white people will stop at nothing to ensure you are reminded that electing a Negro to the presidency could be a detriment to America’s “white way of life.”

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Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

It’s a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It’s also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama’s stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in California, where driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis.

Clinton stumbled into that minefield in a debate last fall and quickly backed off. First she suggested a New York proposal for driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants might be reasonable. Then she denied endorsing the idea, and later came out against them.

Asked directly about the issue now, her California campaign spokesman said Clinton “believes the solution is to pass comprehensive immigration reform.”

“Barack Obama has not backed down” on driver’s licenses for undocumented people, said Federico Peña, a former Clinton administration Cabinet member and Denver mayor now supporting Obama. “I think when the Latino community hears Barack’s position on such an important and controversial issue, they’ll understand that his heart and his intellect is with Latino community.”

Read the rest

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This is an old post from Think Progress in 2006, just in case you did not catch before…

John McCain has made clear that he doesn’t like the blogosphere.Now he has introduced legislation that would treat blogs like Internet service providers and hold them responsible for all activity in the comments sections and user profiles. Some highlights of the legislation:

– Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000.”

– Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face “even stiffer penalties” than ISPs.

— Social networking sites will be forced to take “effective measures” — such as deleting user profiles — to remove any website that is “associated” with a sex offender. Sites may include not only Facebook and MySpace, but also Amazon.com, which permits author profiles and personal lists, and blogs like DailyKos, which allows users to sign up for personal diaries.

Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes that this proposal may be based more “on fear or political considerations rather than on the facts.” When he introduced his legislation to the Senate, McCain offered no evidence that children are being victimized by people who post comments on blogs.

McCain’s legislation could deal a serious blow to the blogosphere. Lacking resources to police their sites, many individual blogs may have to shut down open discussion.
Original post from The Liberty Papers

Red State had this post: The Regulator

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This is from Hot Air

In the clip, Senator McCain says he doesn’t know much about Dr. Hernandez’s positions. This should get Senator McCain up to speed.

There is more here

I sincerely hope idiot John McCain supporters here , here , here, here,, here, here , here, are paying attention, we don’t trust your candidate to secure the borders. He is a lying sack of shit. Say NO to McCain!!!

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Found this on the blog Right Wing Nuthouse

I have a confession to make to my fellow conservatives: I don’t hate Bill Clinton.Don’t get me wrong. I have a pronounced animus toward his policies, what he stands for generally, and his scorched earth, take no prisoners, political attack dog style of politics.

But I have to admit to a sneaking admiration of Bill Clinton, as a man.

He isn’t someone I’d want to sit down and have a beer with. This is someone I’d love to go on a lost weekend with. He appeals to the juvenile in all of us men – a rogue’s rogue who I could see playing marathon poker games and going on weekend trips to Vegas. Good cigars, good whiskey, and of course, the guy is a chick magnet.

No, he’s no gentleman. But if I ever had an impulse to lose control and regress back to a time when I had few responsibilities and less judgement, I’d want Bill Clinton by me as combination sidekick and hedonistic guide.

And let the good times roll, brother Bill.

A “lost weekend” or two may actually be what his wife has in mind for him after what transpired in South Carolina. Bill Clinton didn’t cost his wife the South Carolina primary with his sometimes harsh and belittling criticism of Barack Obama. But almost all agree that he may have overplayed his position as a former president by getting down into the partisan trenches and throwing mud at Hillary’s opponent.

Read the rest of this post here

ALSO CHECK OUT - THE SEDUCTIVE BUT EMPTY CAMPAIGN OF BARACK OBAMA

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Ok, I have been major hard on Ron Paul and his fans, but one of his fans made this video that makes McCain look like a complete asshole, and I love it.
If any more Ron Paul fans want to send me more videos trashing McCain I will gladly post them because I think McCain is a confused old koot.

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The other day I am chatting away with some students and once again the topic of Global Warming came up. As I am usually prone to do, I give my heart- felt opinion on the matter. What resulted is another one of these epiphany moments that, for some reason, seems to be occurring with some frequency during this the most troubling of political campaign seasons.As I went into a mild tirade mode on the topic - I tend to get a wee
bit defensive - I asked what I always do: “If you have information on a topic and you feel that I am on the wrong side of an issue, please send me all of the material you have on the issue and let us discuss the issue on equal terms.”Basically the crux of the argument from the students’ perspective was that here we are, the United States of America, so technologically superior to all nations and our Co2 output is off the charts and we alone, the United States of America, is destroying the earth.One of the students even stated, in response to my questions about China’s pollution woes: “Well, China is a new nation technology wise, they are not an advanced enough society to deal with pollution issues yet.”

Later in the conversation I asked another student, “I’m just curious where do you guys get all of the misinformation?” They were chagrinned at my assertion that what they knew about this pending global crisis had no basis. And they were offended that they would be or could ever be questioned by some neophyte “Neocon.” One of them snapped back, “All you have to do is take a college course and you would know this!” Huh?

Then it hit me. While I was attending the Daily Kos  convention, one of the discussion groups with George Lakoff talked about the framing of issues to “our” advantage, basically meaning we have to create an issue and make it truly “ours.” They advised the liberals at this convention
to do so in a way that did not allow the Republicans to frame the issue to their advantage. So that is what they do on most issues.

Bottom line - it is irrelevant that they be correct on the issue of global warming. It is enough that it scares people and convinces them that only the Democrats care. Any political candidate that that would dare speak out on an issue of such “major world wide implications” would be see as a kook, not caring of the future of our children, evil, greedy
and thereby unacceptable to the American establishment. Who would dare be against clean air and water?

So processing all of this, I listened to a recent You Tube clip of John McCain and that tis when it hit me again. He said on the clip, “so what if I may be wrong about global warming?” he stated that “being on the perceived wrong side of the issue, from a Conservatives perspective, even if I (this is McCain talking) am wrong, the result would simply be a cleaner and safer planet.
I thought oh my God, fucken liberals, give these bastards credit - their plan is working to perfection.

Here were these students who are already completely brainwashed with little effort and simply be spreading a little alarmist theory. For me to try and engage these students in any discussion I would basically come off as a ranting irrational idiot. Global warming a hoax, indeed, silly little under-educated Negro. (Never mind how elitist that actually
is to think…)

For what seemed like an eternity yesterday I stared at my computer, I even had the sound turned down on Rush, and I was thinking, “what the fuck is the point, watching all of these political shows, listening to people rant back and fourth on bullshit, reading these damm blogs and reading these pious “new media” internet lecturers scold the skeptical
amongst their readership and malign the angry masses that see the political tide turning as I do?” It is pointless to argue with them.
Because most Republicans refuse to admit that the liberal left is winning the war of ideas and the future. Angry irrational conservatives - like myself - will quickly turn into Ron Paul fanatical lunatics.
Oceans of angst with no vessel to protect them from the waves. We simply have no messenger to carry our ideas to the Hill where these political hacks reside.

Usually politically insightful individuals like myself would be inspired to “get involved” go work for the party to promote ideals and actively engage political representatives.

I’m like fuck it. Oddly enough (going back to the GW issue) I bet I have worked on more environmental issues than most people.

I was in the center of a fight in my former hometown on a sewage plant treatment issue. This affluent neighborhood wanted no part of a “necessary” sewage treatment plant in their area and the initial plans by the city called for a “massive” pipeline with smaller pumping station circling the city where the “shit” would literally be pumped to the less
than desirable part of town, where an aging and outdated plant was already operating at capacity.

This plan would destroy countless homes, and cause needless damage to the “environment.” Bottom line the treatment plant lives, but not as the
city father’s initially planned it. Not only were the folks who worked with me on the issue able to sell the treatment plant idea, we negotiated with developers to create a buffer and created park and open
space near the plant, implemented cosmetic changes to the creek where the treatment plant was to be built near helping to not only virtually eliminate future flooding issues, but created walking trails and more
open park space.

I also worked on the issue of illegal trash dumping in the poorer (black) neighborhoods. Basically people who were hired to haul away trash from individuals’ garages and other junk from their home would take that “junk” and dump it in empty lots in the poor neighborhoods.
The county instead of going after these people and enforcing dumping laws, instead would send the clean-up bill to the owners of the property, many of whom did not even live in the city.

We started a city watch program and had people take down license numbers of people illegally hauling trash. We worked with the people at the legal dump site to register the license numbers to ensure that the trash and junk did indeed make it to the legal destination. We raised funds to give rewards to people who reported these crimes and put
pressure on the city and county officials to clean up the countless dump sites in the poorer neighborhoods. I worked with community police to patrol the more common illegal dump sites and with the media educating the public on the issue.

There was one news report of me standing in front of a house with trash and shit piled so high you could not see the home. An old lady, about 80 years of age or more, lived there. She had witnessed people dumping this garbage in front of her house for years and she called the police on numerous occasions and the city did nothing. I even had some of the
trash dated, the pile contained things that was over a decade old. What pissed me off more than all of that was the fact that her home was right behind one of the most prominent black churches in the city and nobody from that church ever thought of cleaning up this shit.

So if you ever want to know why I hold some many black folks, particularly black ministers, and preachers in contempt, it is because of my frustration with dealing with them on so many community issues.
They are a bunch of worthless parasitic frauds.

I worked on land use issues to make new business construction more appealing visually and neighborhood compliant.

I worked on numerous open space plans for parks and recreational areas, street and infrastructure improvements where environment considerations were always kept on the front burner.

I was not trying to be some environmental nut, I only wanted to make sure that any issue I was involved with had taking all matters into consideration. I wanted all the facts, not just those that fit into my preconceived outcome ideas.

Yes, despite my Conservative leanings, I cared. The notion that someone like myself wants to live in a dirty, nasty “environment” is simply illogical.

People are simply sheep and pawns in this massive game of political chess. I am growing less and less inclined every day to give a shit about the world of politics. People are less inclined to use basic common sense on issues. They don’t want to learn. They just want to
follow the most charismatic leaders.

After my chat with the students, I see just how complicit they are in this grand scheme of moving the political bar leftward and thereby paving the way for more leftist and illogical liberals to take over politically. I wonder if paying close attention is worth it?

I just don’t think it is anymore. I may need to get a new hobby.

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This is from Hot Air

John McCain says that he has heard the American people and now understands that we need to secure the border before enacting any “comprehensive” immigration reform. But John McCain has also said that he hasn’t changed his position. He supported amnesty in 2003 by name, proposed it in 2006 and 2007 without calling it amnesty, and says that anyone who says that he ever supported amnesty is a liar. He has insulted Americans who advocate border security and has cursed at the thought of building a border fence. Which of all of these is the real John McCain? The presence of Juan Hernandez in the background of the McCain campaign tells me that John McCain is as weak on border security now as he ever was.Old school Hot Air readers might remember Dr. Juan Hernandez. He’s a dual citizen of the US and Mexico, was a member of Vicente Fox’s government, and is as open borders as you can get.

Read the rest here

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The New York Times backs McCain

We have strong disagreements with all the Republicans running for president. The leading candidates have no plan for getting American troops out of Iraq. They are too wedded to discredited economic theories and unwilling even now to break with the legacy of President Bush. We disagree with them strongly on what makes a good Supreme Court justice.Still, there is a choice to be made, and it is an easy one. Senator John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe. With a record of working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation, he would offer a choice to a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field.

We have shuddered at Mr. McCain’s occasional, tactical pander to the right because he has demonstrated that he has the character to stand on principle. He was an early advocate for battling global warming and risked his presidential bid to uphold fundamental American values in the immigration debate. A genuine war hero among Republicans who proclaim their zeal to be commander in chief, Mr. McCain argues passionately that a country’s treatment of prisoners in the worst of times says a great deal about its character.

Read the rest, but why bother. If the New York Times backs the dude, that should send HUGE red flags to any “republican” considering voting for him.

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This from Hot Air, I’m like wow!

Scandal du jour on the left, rooted in the near-religious belief that you’ll always find a Republican cheating if you look closely enough. Riehl almost certainly has this right: Some NBC staffer, possibly Brian Williams, was trying to get Russert to elaborate on a vague question. A mike picked it up, everyone there — including Romney — heard it, and Mitt jumped in. Any evidence for this theory? Yeah, NBC’s political blog jumped on the story, posted on it, and then deleted their post without an explanation, likely to avoid the embarrassment of having to update when they found out what happened. You can see the remnant of it on Google News; there’s a screenshot here.

At Confederate Yankee…

At democrats.com, Bob Fertik wails “Romney cheats with an Earpiece!” despite, of course, having no such evidence of said claim, and the slightly troubling fact that if there was an earpiece, nobody else would have heard it.

Even Rolling Stone has this odd take on the mystery

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When you are bored and need something to read here is an old article from The Independent UK By Stephen Foley - Monday, 30 July 2007

The former first lady’s image as a political automaton has been shaken by the release of letters written when she was an emotional adolescent

Hillary Clinton as a self-doubting misanthrope, prone to bouts of withdrawal and even depression? This stuff isn’t in the script.

The former first lady’s progress back towards the White House, this time on her own ticket, is one of the most carefully choreographed, cautious and calculated in modern campaigning. She herself is a study in on-message moderation, with answers so carefully scripted for focus groups that she has been damned as a political automaton.

Which is why the publication over the weekend of details of dozens of intimate letters written by the young Hillary Rodham to a high school friend has stirred up so much interest, raising anew the debates over how her political ambitions were formed and questions from her enemies about whether she is fit to lead the country.

At the very least, they are a fascinating insight into the emotional turbulence that once lay below the surface of the young student at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, who grew into one of the most scrutinised and yet ultimately inscrutable women at the centre of power in the US.

“Sunday was lethargic from the beginning as I wallowed in a morass of general and specific dislike and pity for most people but me especially,” the 19-year-old Hillary Rodham reported in a letter postmarked 3 October, 1967.

And in another missive that year, she had pondered her own developing personality: “Since Xmas vacation, I’ve gone through three-and-a-half metamorphoses and am beginning to feel as though there is a smorgasbord of personalities spread before me. So far, I’ve used alienated academic, involved pseudo-hippie, educational and social reformer and one-half of withdrawn simplicity.

“Can you be a misanthrope and still love or enjoy some individuals? How about a compassionate misanthrope?”

The intense and introspective correspondence was with John Peavoy, an equally smart classmate from Clinton’s native Illinois, with whom she had formed a strong, if not particularly close, intellectual bond before they both headed to separate east coast universities. Their lives quickly diverged - his on to an academic path, where he now toils in obscurity as an English professor at Scripps College, a small women’s school in southern California. The 30 letters, though, reflect their common explorations of a new life away from the influences of home, over a four-year period at the end of the Sixties.

“They are windows into a time and a place and a journey of self-discovery,” Mr Peavoy told The New York Times yesterday. “This was what college students did before Facebook.”

The real surprise about the correspondence is that it reveals an undercurrent of self-doubt even as the civic-minded Ms Rodham was pursuing a life in student activism, first in the Republican tradition she inherited from a bullying father, and soon in the Democratic party.

In a letter written in the winter of her second year, she confesses her own despair, describing a “February depression”. She catalogues a long, paralysed morning skipping classes, languishing in bed, hating herself. “Random thinking usually becomes a process of self-analysis with my ego coming out on the short end,” she writes.

And at one point she demands of herself: “Define ‘happiness’ Hillary Rodham, acknowledged agnostic intellectual liberal, emotional conservative.”

These are the passages of the correspondence likely to be seized on by the modern-day Hillary Clinton’s political enemies. Recent biographies, including one by Carl Bernstein, have made much of a streak of depression that runs through the Rodham family, particularly its menfolk. Clinton’s uncle made a failed suicide attempt, and her two brothers are also prone to melancholy. The letters published over the weekend add to the evidence for what Bernstein described as Clinton’s tendency during her college period to fall into “debilitating, self-doubting funks. During the early weeks of her freshman semester, she was so deflated that she called home and confessed failure and an inability to cope”.

Worse, Bernstein alleged that it was a trait that has never been fully exorcised. The book says her “emotional state” was “as fragile as it had ever been” in late 1994 after her close friend Vince Foster had committed suicide, her father had died and the rejection of her healthcare proposals had put Democrats on the road to a crushing mid-term electoral defeat. On the campaign trail this year, her script on universal healthcare includes a line about how she bears “the scars on my back” to prove she has learnt a lot about how not to implement such a policy as president. The scars may be more psychological than physical, according to Bernstein. He wrote: “‘I don’t know whether she was seeing a doctor or not” - she wasn’t, so far as is known - “but she was depressed,” said David Gergen, who was counsel to the president. “Deeply depressed. I just felt she went into a downward spiral.” This was a near-universal view in the White House.”

The insinuation is that a tendency to depression would be a hindrance if faced with another major political setback if she returns to the White House, or if there is some other crisis. In what is certain to be a mud-slinging political contest if Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, these sorts of insinuations will surely bubble to the surface, even if they are never mentioned by the formal Republican campaign.

For now, though, the Clinton camp is relaxed about the emergence of the youthful correspondence, which Mr Peavoy has kept in his vast collection of documents and memorabilia and recently allowed a New York Times reporter to copy. It should be treated, her campaign staff say, proportionate to the fact that it is 40 years old.

While she mentions one encounter with a “Dartmouth boy” mainly she is disappointed at the calibre of men among her fellow students, who, she says, “know a lot about ’self’ and nothing about ‘man’”. It wasn’t until she was at law school at Yale that she met the charismatic Bill Clinton, who she married in 1975 at the age of 27.

As for the actions of her fellow female students, when she tells Mr Peavoy that a junior in her dorm had been caught at her boyfriend’s apartment in Cambridge in the early hours, she says: “I don’t condone her actions, but I’ll defend to expulsion her right to do as she pleases - an improvement on Voltaire.”

If there is very little sex, there is precisely no drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Indeed, she tells how she spent a “miserable weekend” arguing with a friend who believed that “acid is the way and what did I have against expanding my conscience”.

The publication of the letters is one more distraction, unbalancing Clinton’s efforts to shift the focus of the campaign on to issues of policy rather than of personal peccadilloes, character and appearance.

For the past week, much of the attention on her has focused on her cleavage, much to the fury of her campaign staff. A Washington Post article after last Tuesday’s Democratic candidates’ debate dedicated itself to her outfit and a neckline that “sat low on her chest and had a subtle V-shape. The cleavage registered after only a quick glance… It was startling to see that small acknowledgment of sexuality and femininity peeking out of the conservative - aesthetically speaking - environment of Congress.”

The article generated hundreds of outraged calls, emails and letters to the Post - and a rebuke from the Clinton staffer Ann Lewis: “Frankly, focusing on women’s bodies instead of their ideas is insulting. It’s insulting to every woman who has ever tried to be taken seriously in a business meeting.”

Nonetheless, the correspondence with Mr Peavoy does shine a light on the formation of her political views, and the rejection of the Republicanism of her parents in Park Ridge, Illinois. In particular, she details the constant rows with her father, Hugh, the son of Welsh and English immigrants who ran a small textile business.

“God, I feel so divorced from Park Ridge, parents, home, the entire unreality of middle-class America,” she opines in one letter. “This all sounds so predictable, but it’s true.” The Vietnam War was a significant catalyst, and by the end of college she was volunteering on Senator Eugene McCarthy’s anti-war presidential campaign in New Hampshire.

She drifted soon enough, too, from her friendship with Mr Peavoy. The pair have not met face to face since, bar a high school reunion evening when Clinton, by then America’s first lady, was a guest of honour.

They did correspond one more time, though - only this time it was the machine politician writing. Mrs Clinton’s political antennae had discerned the existence of the correspondence, which Mr Peavoy had previously shown to a biographer, and she was writing to ask if she could have a copy.

“For all I know she’s mad at me for keeping the letters,” Mr Peavoy told The New York Times yesterday, as he highlighted a neat irony in one of the letters. “Don’t begrudge me my mercenary interest,” she wrote, but she was going to keep his correspondence safe and “make a million” when he became famous.

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This is from Erick at Red State

I have sad news to report.While the Republicans in the United States House of Representatives are willing to fight for conservative principles, particularly those that divide the Democratic caucus in the House, the Republicans in the United States Senate have agreed to capitulate to the Democratic agenda.

Yesterday, I obtained internal Senate emails from Senator Lamar Alexander’s staff. Senator Alexander is in charge of setting the GOP agenda. The emails, which you can read here, signal an intention to cave in to Democratic “bipartisan” initiatives and abandon all efforts to rein in earmarks and spending.

What makes this more troubling is that at yesterday’s GOP Senate retreat, pollster David Winston told the Republicans that one reason they lost the Senate was because of spending. Senator Alexander and the Republican leadership have decided to reject that data and, instead, embrace their minority status.

Rather than push bold conservative issues, the Senate GOP Leadership will instead enjoy the table scraps Harry Reid, Teddy Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton throw them from the leadership table.

Please call your Republican Senator at (202) 224-3121 and tell him to reject bipartisan expansions of government and fight for conservative ideas that stop wasteful spending on bridges to nowhere and Hippie museums.

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From Michelle Malkin

Bruce Walker at the American Thinker notes that Sunday is the 10th anniversary of Hillary Clinton’s coinage of the infamous term we’ve come to wear proudly: “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.” Yes, it’s been a full decade of bitter Clintonian sniping, acute paranoia, and psychological projection against conservative talk radio, conservative authors, and conservative activists. Time flies, huh?How amusing that the birthday week arrives as the desperate Clintons redirect their wrath from the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to the Vast Obama-Loving Media Conspiracy. Who are the Clintons’ worst enemies now? Why, the Obama-conspiring Former Clinton News Network and traitorous San Francisco TV reporters who “don’t care about the home mortgage crisis!” Always someone else’s fault. If you’re not with Them, you’re collaborating with their enemies…to kick people out of their homes. Belly flop into the fever swamp and deep-sea dive into sanctimony. That’s the Billary way.

Or, as a certain Democrat in the Clintons’ crosshairs, put it yesterday: “It’s the same old okey-doke.”

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This article by Marty Peretz from The New Republic

Bill Clinton dozed off at the Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem just as his wife was receiving the endorsement (or, more properly, the blessing) of Calvin Butts at Abyssinian Baptist Church, eight or so blocks away.  This church had been the pulpit of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. — “Mr. Jesus” to his congregation, member of Congress and husband to the politically fearless lefty (just one instance: as a witness before the House Un-American Activities Committees) and staggeringly sexual songstress of my youth, Hazel Scott, like Lena Horne.  A randy fellow. I don’t think that black preachers have the sway they once had. Or white ministers, for that matter, except for those who are evangelicals and fundamentalists operating out of humongous mall churches.But back to the black ministers and their diminished sway.  The decline of preacher power is a coming of age of the African-American population, much as it is among Irish and Italian Catholics or Jews or, for a demographically near-fatal shift, mainstream Protestants, who mostly and at best think their ministers are irrelevant.  The black clerisy cannot any longer instruct its parishoners about their voting.  It is an irony, of course, that the Harlem pastorate’s last swing at real political influence over their congregations is for a white woman and against a black man.  Yet it also emphasizes their reactionary cast.  No one since Martin Luther King has anyone so inspired and energized young whites as Barack Obama.  This, then, is a real cross-racial alliance built on the cultural and educational achievements of African-Americans and on the true openness of whites and Asians to their black brothers and sisters. The bond between every Calvin Butts in America and Hillary is the old fix, pliant for the former, patronizing for the latter. And, as for the latter and her husband, it is also ugly.  An article in this morning’s Financial Times by Edward Luce and Stephanie Kirchgaessner makes clear how perilous this is for the Clintons — and for the Democrats, in general.  The most significant trap is that Bill risks making himself the prime issue of his wife’s campaign, two nasty and unimaginably calculating folk baying at Barack Obama whom almost everyone finds gracious. Me too.

There is a calculus to the Clintons trying to make Obama run as the black candidate.  It is to stir up fear in one part of Hillary’s constituency, white women and particularly older white women.  The other goal for Hillary is to turn Obama into a taunt for Hispanic Americans.   After all, there was not one signific