This is good news for us, if we can get the TM to pay attention. Though the press has mentioned McCain's endorsement from Daddy Yankee, most have still not figured out that this is not good for John McCain.
as did another dealing with the legal issues,"McCain Violates AZ Law with Hip-Hop Endorsement", and attempts were made to address the issue earlier today. I would normally let it slide, except for the fact that it is now being picked up by the TM, though most reports are still pretty clueless about how big a gaffe this actually is, since few of the writers are conversant with street Spanish, or with reggaeton.
I refuse to write a veep diary. But congrats to Joe Biden, and I'll bend a knee to our new Delaware Overlord, Delaware Dem who stated:
All Hail Delaware.
As a longtime, ancient member of Daily Kos, probably the first time you became aware that there was a state called Delaware was when you saw my handle for the first time.
As a jazz fan, I've long been aware of the state of Delaware, and the city of Wilmington, because it was the birth state of one of the finest young trumpeters ever to pick up a horn; Clifford Brown.
"Johnny we Hardly Know Ye" is the title of Eugene Robinson's column in today's Washington Post.
A biting piece on McCain's confusion, houses, stance on the economy, but it echoes Frank Rich's piece last week in the NYT - because it emphasizes that we know almost nothing about John McCain, in a time when all the focus has been on defining Barack Obama.
The title references folk tune Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye:
"Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" is a popular Irish traditional anti-war and anti-recruiting song. It is the basis for the American popular song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", as Patrick Gilmore announced to the public that he had taken the tune for "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" from "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" in 1883.
Warning: This is a rant. More Strong language below the fold
I waited till midnight to push the button to publish this. I'm up past my bedtime - and I'm still angry enough to take the plunge. I'll go back to writing saner diaries another day, or maybe writing no diaries at all, but I would be dishonest if I just sat on my hands and didn't share how I'm feelin' right about now. So here it goes.
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands...
...often referred to as the Freedmen's Bureau, was established in the War Department by an act of March 3, 1865. The Bureau supervised all relief and educational activities relating to refugees and freedmen, including issuing rations, clothing and medicine. The Bureau also assumed custody of confiscated lands or property in the former Confederate States, border states, District of Columbia, and Indian Territory.
In this weeks NY Times, a article discussing the alarming increase in the prescription of methadone as a pain killer almost slipped past me, since like most of us here, I've been caught up with the election.
Methadone Rises as a Painkiller With Big Risks
Suffering from excruciating spinal deterioration, Robby Garvin, 24, of South Carolina, tried many painkillers before his doctor prescribed methadone in June 2006, just before Mr. Garvin and his friend Joey Sutton set off for a weekend at an amusement park.
On Saturday night Mr. Garvin called his mother to say, "Mama, this is the first time I have been pain free, this medicine just might really help me." The next day, though, he felt bad. As directed, he took two more tablets and then he lay down for a nap. It was after 2 p.m. that Joey said he heard a strange sound that must have been Robby’s last breath.
I’m sitting here this morning thinking about last nights forum at Saddleback, and what hit me was something slimy John McCain pulled, and he hasn’t been called on it yet. He named
Congressman John Lewis as one of his 3 top "heroes" or person’s whose advice he would seek.
I was stunned. How dare a man who has done nothing to advance the cause of Civil Rights, has actively worked against it,who will support Supreme Court Justices who undermine Civil Rights wrap himself in the heroism of a movement – symbolized by one of the last living "leaders"?
This is not McCain's first use of John Lewis as a black mask of his true character.
As the time draws near for the Saddleback Church showdown between Barack and McCain, the Matthew 25 Network has been quietly busy, airing an ad targeted at Christians in support of Obama.
(CNN) – A major firefighters union will throw its support behind Barack Obama during its annual convention in Las Vegas on Thursday.
Obama, who is on vacation with his family in Hawaii, taped a message that will be played in front of the 3,500 members of the International Association of Fire Fighters at around 2pm E.T.
The union chose to back Obama over John McCain because of the presumptive Democratic nominee’s support of collective bargaining, which gives workers the right to jointly work with their employers to negotiate hours, salaries, benefits and overall working conditions, IAFF spokesman Scott Treibitz said.
Though this has not gotten much coverage, I ran across this item early this morning:
Charlotte man accused of threatening Obama Jerry M. Blanchard, 48, was being held Friday in the Mecklenburg County Jail on the charge of threatening to kill, kidnap or injure a major candidate for president on July 15 and July 28, according to a criminal complaint filed Aug. 1 by a U.S. Secret Service agent.
The affidavit attached to the complaint by Agent Sean Leddy and unsealed this week said that witnesses told federal authorities they overheard the 48-year-old Blanchard threatening to assassinate the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee on two occasions in July.
One witness said he was eating breakfast at a Waffle House in Charlotte with a friend when Blanchard approached and started talking about Obama.
"Obama and his wife are never going to make it to the White House. He needs to be taken out and I can do it in a heartbeat," Leddy quoted Blanchard as saying. The witness also heard Blanchard discuss his intention to purchase a pistol from a gun shop and contacted federal authorities.
No wonder our "Xenophobe in Chief" Lou Dobbs is looking more worried each day. While we Democrats talk of turning red states blue, the demographic map of the rainbow of people who make up the diverse population of the US is shifting, and in many areas of the US, "minorities" (a euphemism for people of color; blacks, latinos, asians and Native Americans) are now the majority.
The US Census Bureau's recent report shows interesting shifts in racial/ethnic demographics.
Foreshadowing the nation’s changing makeup, one in four American counties have passed or are approaching the tipping point where black, Hispanic and Asian children constitute a majority of the under-20 population, according to analyses of census figures released Thursday.
Next week's Ebony magazine features an 11-page spread about Mrs. Obama that includes interviews with her mother, brother and several close friends.
"I love to look glamorous when there's a wonderful, purposeful event that is appropriate. But when I'm in Iowa campaigning with the girls, I am in Gap shorts and a T-shirt," Mrs. Obama says of her fashion sense. "My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom-in-chief," she later says of her family commitments. "We accessorize each other in many ways," she says of her marriage to the senator.
"She wanted to open the doors and let America see who she is. She invited Ebony into her inner circle," says the magazine's creative director Harriette Cole, who compiled more than 500 pages of notes for her report. The magazine has covered the senator's rise since before he ran for the Illinois state Senate, Cole said.
The latest set of smears now being hurled at Barack Obama, already labeled by the TM pundits and wingers as an: elitist, snob, presumptuous black man, radical, Muslim, wimp, arugula eating, black nationalist, celebrity, rock star, unpatriotic, un-American, Harvard intellectual are being spearheaded by Glenn Beck, at CNN Headline News.
Since I never watch Headline News, I didn't realize that they actually had "interview" programs. I certainly had no idea that they could rival FOX for gutter politics passing as journalism.
Now John McCain is pea-green with envy. That’s the only explanation for why a man who prides himself on honor, a man who vowed not to take the low road in the campaign, having been mugged by W. and Rove in South Carolina in 2000, is engaging in a festival of juvenilia.
The Arizona senator who built his reputation on being a brave proponent of big solutions is running a schoolyard campaign about tire gauges and Paris Hilton, childishly accusing his opponent of being too serious, too popular and not patriotic enough.
Even his own mother, the magical 96-year-old Roberta McCain, let slip that she thought the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears ad was "kinda stupid."
I was raised on jazz. My dad was from Chicago and grew up with Nat King Cole and Joe Williams. My parents were in NY by the time I was born and my earliest memories are of my parents playing 78’s of tunes like Stompin’ at the Savoy, Caravan, and Caldonia, or Billie singing Strange Fruit.
In a recent article McSexist, McCain’s War on Women by Kate Sheppard in In These Times, the writer points out a host of reasons why women should not vote for John McCain.
She writes:
Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) campaign and the media would have us believe that herds of disaffected women voters will be stampeding to the Republicans this year because a woman candidate won’t be on the presidential ballot in November.
McCain’s campaign has been making a clear play for women voters in recent weeks, hosting conference calls with Republican women and touting that his policies on national security, the economy and healthcare appeal to women voters.
But the suggestion that women — and feminist women, at that — will be lining up behind him is a fairytale. At least, it should be. McCain’s record and policies on issues of importance to women are neither moderate nor maverick.
