What did that guy say? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on . . . won’t get fooled again!
Wise words. To be punked once is unfortunate, to be punked TWICE (in one week even!) shows a lack of judgment. That’s me right now. I’m both embarrassed and ashamed for assuming the veracity of a story that was both explosive and almost immediately questionable. I should know better.
I am sorry to all of my readers who HAVE been victims of violence in any form. Jumping on the bandwagon like I did, with little regard for the trauma it might revive in the minds and hearts of those who really HAVE BEEN HURT was very unkind and irresponsible and insensitive.
I am also sorry to every black man who has been hurt, shamed, and diminished by this unconscionable lie. To fabricate the story of an attack is an assault by a shameless person on the compassion and good faith of everyone. To make up a story like that using the most inflammatory and racist stereotypes in our cultural skeleton closet is beyond the pale. Big scary black man (with very dark skin, natch) attacks small, defenseless, young white woman. Ugh. Who cares about my personal experience, right? But for the record, I have never in ALL MY LIFE met this “big scary black dude” who everyone claims is all over the place. All the black men I’ve ever met have been friendly, funny, indifferent, compassionate, or sad. Maybe I need to get out more, but that’s my reality.
It almost makes me want to vote for Barack Obama. Seriously. If only to say that I will never defend the actions of Ashley Todd. She does not speak for me or for any decent person.
I’m not going to do it, because my beef with Obama goes way back. Way back before this week to the primaries, the caucuses, the lies, and the fraud.
But gosh darn you Ashley Todd, you just made my job a whole lot harder. Go take a very long walk off a very short pier.
But before you do, let me thank you for reminding me why I’ve always been wary of College Republicans. Another wise person has said, “If you’re not a Democrat when you’re young then you have no soul. And if you’re not a Republican when you grow up then you have no brain.”
Silly? yes. I feel just great about being a Democrat headed into middle age, BUT the first part of that statement is absolutely true. And Ashley Todd is Exhibit A.
One Last Parting Dose of Reality Before I Go Catch Up On Email
Barack Obama is NOT a socialist. I mean come on! A 36% top interest rate = Unfettered Capitalism but a 39% top interest rate = Godless Socialism? Context is everything. Also, why the hell would the employees of all the financial companies have donated more money to Barack Obama than they have to any other candidate in the history of corporate people buying elections if they thought he was a socialist? Why would the current chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, a former CEO of Goldman Freakin Sachs, have endorsed the guy if he believed he was a socialist?
Barack Obama is not a terrorist and he is not a Muslim. He is a shameless opportunist who saw that the path of least resistance for his ambitious rise to political power lay through the heart of Chicago. That meant Wright, Ayers, Rezko, Farrakhan, Jackson, and Daley. I find that path troubling. I believe he underestimates the pernicious and aggressive intent of fundamentalist Islam and WOULD make grave errors in his approach to the Middle East. However, that doesn’t make him a Muslim and it doesn’t make him a terrorist. It makes him a Typical Power Grabbing Politician.
Pumas, we are the good guys for a REASON. Because we don’t like cheaters, we don’t like fraud, and we hate misogyny. We stand for free and fair elections that reflect the will of the VOTERS. We fight for transparency, honesty, and integrity in our elected officials. We hold the media to a standard of decency, fairness, and investigative rigor.
This election will be over in 10 days. I’m thinking about the eleventh day. When we go to bed late on November 4th, I want to know that when I wake up on November 5th I know WHERE I am and I know WHO I am. No matter who wins.
We have a massive mountain to move, and our work begins in earnest on November 5th. The government is corrupt. The mainstream media is complicit. The corporations are a power unto themselves — sovereign, united, and extra-national.
But WE are legion and vast. WE are the people. And as long as we can communicate with each other and can depend on our leaders to be honest people of integrity we WILL prevail.
This round’s on me. Drink up. Tomorrow we go back into battle.
OHIO: “A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered Ohio’s top elections official to set up a system by the end of the week to verify new voters’ eligibility and make it available to Ohio’s 88 county election boards.”
“An analysis of campaign finance records by The New York Times this week found nearly 3,000 donations to Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, from more than a dozen people with apparently fictitious donor information. The contributions represent a tiny fraction of the record $450 million Mr. Obama has raised. But the questionable donations — some donors were listed simply with gibberish for their names — raise concerns about whether the Obama campaign is adequately vetting its unprecedented flood of donors.”
What’s significant here, aside from the obvious FRAUD! is that the NYT’s review was both cursory and brief — a few hours looking over a random sample of names — and they immediately identified $40,000 in blatantly obvious fraudulent donations. What the heck?
Secretary of State Brunner in Ohio has been found to be acting in violation of the law. And, better yet, the federal judge on the case is INSISTING that the state verify ALL of the new voter registrations. Very good.
Hillbuzz tells me that over 4,000 dead people are registered and ready to vote in Texas. Wow! I knew Texas was special, but that’s REALLY special!
Crazy, crazy days, Folks.
Oh, and the stock market opened 500 points lower this morning after the Day From Hell yesterday and the Night from Deepest Hell overnight in Asia and Europe.
From today’s Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary:
“One of the funniest and most politically searing comedy sketches in years has vanished from the Web site of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Visitor comments asking about its disappearance are also being scrubbed from the Web site. The sketch — a harsh indictment of the housing meltdown that led to last week’s bailout bill — was clearly too much truth for someone to handle.
The seven-minute sketch featured a mock news conference of Democratic Congressional leaders on the bailout bill, during which Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank inadvertently acknowledge that it was Congress that blocked reform and effective oversight of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
-snip-
They were followed by actors portraying the real-life couple of Herbert and Marion Sandler. They explained how they built a mortgage company that specialized in subprime mortgages, which they sold to Wachovia Bank for $24.2 billion in 2006 — one of the worst acquisitions by any company ever. It helped precipitate the collapse of Wachovia last week.
The Sandlers were hustled off the stage by “Speaker Pelosi” after they said they couldn’t understand why they were invited to a news conference of “victims” since they had done so well out of the housing crisis.
They were followed by financier George Soros, identified as “Owner, Democratic Party.” The actor portraying Mr. Soros informs the group that the $700 billion bailout package “basically belongs to me” and that he has decided to short the U.S. dollar. That will trigger a devaluation “either Tuesday or Wednesday. I haven’t decided which yet. It will depend on how I feel.”
The brutally wicked sketch must have caused tremors in left-wing circles. The Sandlers and Mr. Soros have all been prime financial backers of independent political groups that have secured huge influence in the Democratic Party and helped fuel the rise of Barack Obama.
The Sandlers, for example, were major donors to the left-wing radio network Air America as well as the liberal housing lobby ACORN, a major player in pressuring banks into making more subprime mortgages. They also donated $2.5 million to MoveOn.org, the liberal group that insulted General David Petraeus as “General Betray Us” last year. Mr. Soros contributed a like amount. In turn, Eli Pariser, the head of MoveOn.org, was quite candid after the 2004 election about the influence this left-wing cabal hoped to exercise: “Now it’s our party: we bought it, we own it, and we are going to take it back.”
No doubt the Sandlers and Mr. Soros were displeased with the Saturday Night Live sketch. Herbert Sandler told the Associated Press that its portrayal of him as a predatory lender was “crap.” “We are being unfairly tarred. People have been telling us to speak out for some time, but we didn’t think it was appropriate. That was clearly a mistake.”
I suspect that some of the people the Sandlers have spoken to — or complained to — are the corporate overseers of NBC. That may explain why the bailout sketch has been airbrushed from the network’s Web site and will likely never be shown again.
That’s a shame, because rarely has political satire been more timely, pointed and, in many respects, so truthful.”
Time to grab your beat-up copy of 1984, Folks.
“The people who aspired to become this new aristocracy are described as ‘bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organisers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists and professional politicians’, with their origins in ‘the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class’.”
WELCOME TO OBAMA’S BASE (supported by the backs of the black poor)
“The first chapter, Ignorance is Strength, begins with the observation that throughout history, all societies have been divided into a caste system of three groups or classes: the High, who are the rulers; the Middle, who yearn to take over the position of the High; and the Low, who are typically so suppressed that in their drudgery they have no goals beyond day-to-day survival (if they are at all able to formulate any political agenda, it is to establish a society where all people are equal).
. . .”In each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly abandoned. The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the century…had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality.” The real goal was to freeze history once the Middle had once again overthrown the High and become the new High themselves: This would be the last revolution ever; the new High would stay in power indefinitely by a conscious strategy. The people who aspired to become this new aristocracy are described as “bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organisers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists and professional politicians”, with their origins in “the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class”.”
DAILY UPDATE 10/7/08
1. Check out Puma PAC’s DAILY ALERT for today — all the links and info you need to get busy, HERE!
2. Get Freddie Brown’s NEW FLYER! Just send an email with your real name and address and blog name to: fred08puma@gmail.com. You’ll get 100 of these beauties in your mailbox in a matter of days! Thanks freddie brown and dwp!
3. Make this video VIRAL. Send it to your mailing lists. Drop the url in comments at the blogs you frequent. Get it out there Puma PAC Ambassadors.
4. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper today. Tell them what you think of Obama’s connections to radical extremists. Post your letter here after you mail it. Use the handy, dandy guide in our ACTION CENTER for links and tips.
5. Join Puma PAC today and be a part of the largest, most organized Citizens Action Network in the Pumasphere. It’s Free, Easy, and Fun! You will receive all of our Super Secret PROWLS, and we NEVER EVER spam you, bug you for money, or share your information. Never, ever. Join us HERE!
6. Contribute if you can to Puma PAC, so we can keep the lights on. Donations accepted HERE, and THANK you!
I was searching the intertoobz for pictures of Rezko’s slum buildings — you know, the ones that he received ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS from Illinois’ and American taxpayers (the rolling rivers of cash guided into his back account with a little help from his friend Barack Obama) to rebuild — and NEVER DID??
Yeah, those ones. It’s funny — if I want to find pictures of slums in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, or Miami all I have to do is type: “urban decay” into The Google and, voila! All SORTS of discouraging images pop up. But go ahead and try to find images of “rezko buildings,” or “chicago south side,” all of the images have been SCRUBBED. Gone. Go back in the archives of No Quarter and look what happened to the images that used to be there. GONE.
Kind of reminds me of this story from this morning. Couldn’t happen here, right?
That little story out of Saint Louis two weeks ago was no canary in the coal mine, right? Truth Squads prosecuting political speech is nothing to worry about!
Has anyone ever been to the South Side of Chicago ??? I have - many times . The residents there have been surviving in sub-standard conditions for years . There are no jobs , crime is rampant , and the housing conditions are so poor it is a complimentary exaggeration to call them slums. The word ‘projects’ indicates a work in progress , but on the Chicago’s south side it takes on a different meaning - a stagnant , decaying slum . 11 of these deplorable buildings on the south side are owned by Obama’s friend Tony Rezco.
Obama funneled State money to Rezco to ” improve conditions in those buildings ‘ - never happened.
Obama also funneled $100,000 for a ‘ let them eat cake’ gazebo on the south side . The gazebo was never built even though I am sure that those families who are living in falling down buildings in crime infested neighborhoods were really hoping for a freaking gazeebo .
Sen. Obama handed his wife’s employer a 1 million dollar earmark . He requested 3 million to update a projector at the Sky Theater . Trinity Church and Rev. Pfleger benifited from the 100 million dollars Obama doled out for the Annenberg Challenge which was SUPPOSED to have been used to help the failing public school system . Some of the programs Obama turned down for grants were : The Chicago Algebra project , and The District 5 Math Initiative - both are worthy projects that the public school system desperatly needed to finance . Meanwhile , Obama’s buddies , and radical groups received millions .
When you go to vote this year , I would encourage you to check out the South Side of Chicago , Obama’s own Senate district . See what “Change” Obama has brought to his own district . Take a look at how his ‘leadership’ has ‘improved’ his own community , and then ask yourself , ” If Senator Obama doesn’t care about his own community, what will he do for me ?”
Good morning , Pumas Just had to get that off my chest .
– Texas Tigress
I love the line “he launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.”
When you say it that way, it does sound truly horrible and like something that should disqualify a person from being POTUS.
Of course, once again, “this is not the Bill ayers I knew.” And people will buy that?
I was in college in the 60’s and aerly 70’s and I marched for Civil Rights and against the War, but I never thought that being violent myself was the right thing to too.
– nohillarybutton
Obama funneled state money to family
The Associated Press has probed Barack Obama’s earmarking activities in the Illinois state senate and discovered two grants that put state money in the hands of Michelle Obama’s cousin. Capers Funnye received $75,000 from Obama for his organization, Blue Gargoyle, for adult literacy and youth group activities. Read HERE.
– greenfun
DAILY UPDATE 10/7/08
1. Check out Puma PAC’s DAILY ALERT for today — all the links and info you need to get busy, HERE!
2. Get Freddie Brown’s NEW FLYER! Just send an email with your real name and address and blog name to: fred08puma@gmail.com. You’ll get 100 of these beauties in your mailbox in a matter of days! Thanks freddie brown and dwp!
3. Make this video VIRAL. Send it to your mailing lists. Drop the url in comments at the blogs you frequent. Get it out there Puma PAC Ambassadors.
4. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper today. Tell them what you think of Obama’s connections to radical extremists. Post your letter here after you mail it. Use the handy, dandy guide in our ACTION CENTER for links and tips.
5. Join Puma PAC today and be a part of the largest, most organized Citizens Action Network in the Pumasphere. It’s Free, Easy, and Fun! You will receive all of our Super Secret PROWLS, and we NEVER EVER spam you, bug you for money, or share your information. Never, ever. Join us HERE!
6. Contribute if you can to Puma PAC, so we can keep the lights on. Donations accepted HERE, and THANK you!
“Borrowing rates remained very high on Monday despite the passage of the Americanbailout plan, although proponents of that package argue that its longer-term benefits will take time to carry out. Still, some gauges of anxiety in the market again reached record highs as the week began, and a benchmark overnight borrowing rate, the Libor rate, moved higher. A measure of volatility, the VIX index, jumped to its highest intraday level ever.” [source: NYT]
Watch this clip about the Weather Underground. If you remember those days, let us know your thoughts — have they changed over time? Does it matter to YOU that Obama has used his connections to Ayers and other radicals to further his career? (thanks to NoQuarter for the video.)
DAILY UPDATE 10/6/08
1. Check out Puma PAC’s DAILY ALERT for today — all the links and info you need to get busy, HERE!
2. Call the Ohio Secretary of State’s office and register your concern about voter fraud being carried out by ACORN. Ask the Secretary of State’s office just how they plan to verify the validity of the hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots collected by the Obama-backing, scandal-plagued organization. Call and ask how you can SIGN UP TO BE A POLL MONITOR on Election Day — that’s the day all of the absentee ballots will be counted. We don’t all need to become poll monitors, but let’s harry the Secretary of State’s Office with requests, so that she is aware that WE ARE WATCHING. Call Secretary Jennifer Brunner’s Office now! 1-614-466-2585 and 1-614-462-6281 and 1-877-767-6446.
3. Make this video VIRAL. Send it to your mailing lists. Drop the url in comments at the blogs you frequent. Get it out there Puma PAC Ambassadors.
4. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper today. Tell them what you think of Obama’s connections to radical extremists. Post your letter here after you mail it. Use the handy, dandy guide in our ACTION CENTER for links and tips.
5. Join Puma PAC today and be a part of the largest, most organized Citizens Action Network in the Pumasphere. It’s Free, Easy, and Fun! You will receive all of our Super Secret PROWLS, and we NEVER EVER spam you, bug you for money, or share your information. Never, ever. Join us HERE!
6. Contribute if you can to Puma PAC, so we can keep the lights on. Donations accepted HERE, and THANK you!
From today’s Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary:
