No it isn't just you. I'm sick of it too.

The most frustrating part is trying to figure out where Obama actually stands on the important issues, because he isn't letting on. He wants to left to fantasize that he will be their liberal saviour while trying to convince the right that he won't disrupt the corruption-as-usual inside the beltway.

Needless to say, it doesn't take more than half a brain to realize that doing both are not possible. So where does the guy stand? Only Michelle probably knows.

At least with McSame you know what you will get. Four to eight more years of mindless pandering to the military-industrial-political-complex (MIPC), continued economic decline and waning in American influence worldwide while the good ol' boys finish the job of cleaning out the American treasury and embezzling the taxpayers' money.

And Obama isn't going to mention Snoop because he's afraid of the gossip on FOX and CNN it would generate. So much for gutsy leadership.

God, this race is awful. Can we just get it the heck over with?

Obama McCain: no difference.

It is funny I read Medved's latest, and every word he wrote is in complete opposition to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

I would vote republican just so these people could start outright killing the poor (instead of the slow deaths that result from lack of medical attention and the collection agencies).

But now they just make money throwing us in their prisons.

Oh well: on with the show.

peace

Gotham....

No way to prove this, but I'd be willing to bet the farm that if your messiah was up 20 points and not sliding in the polls...you wouldn't have written this blog...

Hope the baby is doing well...

norm

Gotham....

No way to prove this, but I'd be willing to bet the farm that if your messiah was up 20 points and not sliding in the polls...you wouldn't have written this blog...

Hope the baby is doing well...

norm

Well, the president of the united states is still going to be a young male, so if he is really falling, then he needs to straighten up and do what he was doing before. Hey, Obama is white too! :-) BTW: I liked this cute posting by Gotham, so thanks. To the dogs! Meow ...

Love, Char

Yes, it is nauseating as they succumb to appeasing the people and their popular fictions.

Everyone claims they want a truth based President but a President that spoke the plain truth would rub most everyone the wrong way and not get elected.

The thing that bothers me most is that if Obama is elected will he be able to resist the forces of ego? Will he get bad advice from those with ulterior motives?

I know if I were Obama I wouldn't choose a VP that the Status Quo might want to become president. It might create an incentive.

What happens when we listen to advice born from the forces of ego.

Unless the people of the United States wake up and start cutting through the fictions self destruction is assured even if Obama get elected.

It looked positive for a while then in the last few days it is looking a bit ominous, most people have no idea how much damage EGO & GREED has done to the system in ways you might not even imagine have yet to see. The fault though really lies with all the people who refuse to embrace the truth and continue to live a fiction and allow themselves to be divided amongst themselves.

Hi Richard,

If I was Obama, I would choose John McCain as my vice-president :)

Perhaps they would hold themselves into balance then and the whole Senate with them.

Mieke

Dear Gotham and everyone,

We are all tired of the long drawn-out charade being played out in the political arena. It has come down to which candidate can best read the latest public opininon polls and orchestrate his rhetoric around appealing to the supposed majority at hand. It is a case of which candidate can best impress his audience by calculated gesturing and good acting techniques accompanied by the memorization of well written speeches.

There is an uncomfortable feeling that many of us have when listening to words having no spontaneity or real substance. The words do not ring of sincerity. Why has substance been replaced by dedicated showmanship?

It is very evident that the media is decidedly leftist and that there is no fair representation
of both parties. A case in point is the treatment of the newly released book, "The Obama Nation" by Jerome Corsi. Mr. Corsi is a fine investigative journalist and well educated individual. The known leftist publications: the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Time Magazine have all been quick to oppose the book. Of course, the legitimacy of the factual reporting by Mr. Corsi is ignored.

I, for one, am totally fed up with all the lies and lack of impartiality in the presentation of the information being fed the population.

Best Wishes,

"Betsy" S.

Ah, c'mon, Norm! Gotham may just have the ex-jock blues. Don't you 'bout this time?

Of course, we'd all pick a bad football game over a good political speech.

Reruns are reruns, no matter. "Batter up!", I say, too!

Besides...a Veep is basically drafted to whet your whistle. Blow one!

Hey Mieke
I think they should bring Hillary back and make it a three way presidency.

derek

There is that possibility that the Queen already picked Obama and it is all just show.

As for the left and right thing, the left takes away economic freedom and the right takes away personal freedom leaving no freedom, which means all of you liberal and conservatives are really just the indentured servitude rendered impotent by illusionary conflicts create in your minds. The production is put on to appease you, so that you think you are getting to choose.

British subjects we know are being banned from viewing certain potentially revealing US Web sites that might awaken them from the Illusion.

Which means it is just like sports where the games are fixed by a few players and the team that will win is decided in advance of the game.

Our only hope is that some mysterious force may make it’s own play and throw a wrench into the entire works and will some how bring the awareness to liberate the many from the schemes of a few.

At the highest levels it’s just a bunch of drama and comedy to keep the Gods entertained.

Excellent post Richard!

I was thinking about how all the men of the world seem to dominate the power structure. I think if we look at the bee colony we see that the Queen bee tends to kill off any new Queens that come on the scene. So the Queen favors the Drones and wants to hold down any females that could become Queen, the good for nothing except themselves drones on the planet have created quite a mess of the hive we live in. Perhaps the Queen should chop off some heads and get a real fix in place and the Hive systems corrected. I caught this headline that speaks of “Obama's edge among young female voters” right away I new this was a clue from God, to organize the female working class bees to sting the drones to death. We will just show them the pictures of what the Drones on the planet have and are doing to the Children.

Look at the Chess board it might appear the Queen is the most powerful, since she can move any direction as far as she wants, the King can move only one space at a time, but who is it that all the players protect and serve? The King of course. Who does the King represent but the being that is moving all the players? It might be time for the King to intervene in the game in a major way since it has been minor up till now and not very effective.

Most people should also realize that many of the male members of congress and power players throughout industry, including many authors and CEO’s etc. have cheated on their wives. Of course many wives have done the same thing when their husbands, many of whom lose interest in sex with their wives after bearing their children which is a part of nature. True the compromised members of congress were brought under the spell of a seduction agent, video and other evidence collected therefore allowing for blackmail and a compromised Politician.

I suggest all the compromised members of congress resign immediately before their evidence starts popping up or admit your wrongs and make amends. Who knows videos could start showing up on You Tube, let’s hope not though we don’t need the children to be seeing such a poor example.

You all remember Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who gained national prominence relentlessly pursuing Wall Street wrongdoing. The same Wall street that is the main cause of all the financial tribulation you all now suffer, those good for nothing gamblers that make no economic contribution and disrupt the markets manipulating them. Well Wall Street played their Ace having had him compromised. True he is responsible for giving in to temptation and one is not suggesting there is anyone on the planet fit to judge him or any member of congress.

Why do you think Monica kept her dress as evidence? What other presidents have been compromised in the same fashion?

What this means is we have no idea how many members of congress and other government officials have been compromised but we can be sure that most the women have not been.

So almost all members of congress especially the old insider boys need to be removed by your vote. This is a National Security issue and the responsibility to resolve it is yours, this may be why we have been sold out to China and been stuck with the bill for maintaining order on the planet. Probably some hot Chinese agents have the goods on members of congress and various CEO’s and members of the Board of Directors.

However nobody needs to be taking the focus of their own faults by focusing on the faults of congress. There is no one fit to judge anyone else on the planet. It’s between them and God if he exists. Speaking of God, if there is no God then I am crazy, if there is a God then there are a number of people on this that are in deep trouble.

What we need is to get the right women for the job.

Everyone knows how Santa Claus has a list of everyone that is naughty or nice. Well he has the information in the Santa Claus database which certain Techorati have gained access to. God knows everything do you really think your fooling God?

The interesting thing is all these people claim to serve God and love him yet when he shows up with the truth they crucify him. He was a threat to their fictions. Now does anyone want to tell me why an Omnipotent being needs to be worshiped by you? Do your really think God has an ego to be stroked, or is that a projection on your part?

Maybe the right thing to do is love the creation, which includes the planet and other people. Looking at the state of affairs we have not been doing a very good job of loving the planet or each other.

Let us hope that we all evolve (ev(e) love backwards).

All in good cheer it’s all good, it’s just a movie.

excelente last para, G.

love, h

About "hint Snoop Dog":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdKQndT_W4Q

And Derek # 10. There are three players in this movie :)

Mieke

I vote for Snoop.
No one can put the cool on like he can. He would be better than the other three put together. His boat floats smooth even in the roughest of seas.

Yo Snoop

derek

Hey Richard
I get breaking news updates from Reuters every day.
A few days ago, I got one that was supposed to say

"Lowes profit tops Wall Street" but Lowes was misspelled and it said

"Love's profit tops Wall Street"

Think I will keep that one! :)

love
bonnie

Bonnie, that is a good one. The mysterious force, consciousness at work.

Dear Richard,

Great commentary in Posting No.11. This morning I heard a report about the operation of governmental surveillance on the British population. "Big Brother" is alive and flourishing in Great Britain under instruction from the monarchy. The report said that the government has collected information on all British citizens to the tune of 3,000 items on each "subject".

If the American people don't WAKE UP soon we'll all be in exactly the same position, if we're not already.

Best Wishes,

"Betsy" S.

How many houses does John McCain have?
He's not sure.
He needs to check with his staff.
Barack looked into it.
Seven.

How many houses does John McCain have?
He's not sure.
He needs to check with his staff.
Barack looked into it.
Seven.

And your point about that is.....?

He doesn't know how he's spending his own money.

"I think the guy is smart, fresh, compassionate, willing to think creatively about complex planetary and political issues."

I'm just wondering Gotham, how does that qualify for someone who is running who is running for President of the United States?

Perhaps he should start a really progressive think tank?

Cheers,

Steve

He doesn't know what's going on under his own roof.

or should I say roofs

OOOOOOHHHH!!

He should have said he owns zero. His wife owns seven!

:)

Jason Linkins: The Game-Changer Scenario

"...PANIC TIME has set in, and so have the calls for Obama to do something "game-changing" and amazing, like capturing Osama bin Laden and slaking his hunger by eating his still-warm viscera.

Now, I'm of the mind that no one's done anything in this campaign to either win or lose this election yet, but since the Democratic National Convention is next week, and The Most Important Text Message Of Modern History is imminent(ish), we aren't going to have much time to contemplate these spectral inanities, anyway, so why not indulge? And, displaying some good timing, CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen has helpfully supplied us with three scenarios to chew over. Let's take them on out of order.

THREE: The "Building Team Obama" Scenario
[...]

TWO: The Al Gore Becomes Vice-President Scenario
[...]

ONE: The Hillary Clinton Becomes Vice-President Scenario

Yeah, baby. Now we're just getting CRAZY. You know the problems with this scenario already. Hillary Clinton can't stand Barack Obama. Bill Clinton can't stand Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton will never truly be able to subordinate herself in the White House. Ditto for Bill, who knows where all the danishes are buried. Mark Penn and Lanny Davis would probably find a way to make every child in America cry. Terry McAuliffe is blessedly encased in a Cone of Silence. She's an underminer. She's calculating. Maybe she's the final Cylon. Nobody knows.

BUT WHAT THE EFF. It's August, I'm about to take a day off, and what this idea lacks in seeming good sense it more than makes up for in sheer audacity. So let's consider this, like we were sad drunks staring at the sunset at The End Of Days.

Clinton as Veep is not just a Game Changing Scenario. It's the Shoot The Hostage scenario. It's a recognition that Obama cannot possibly fight a two front battle for the win in November, so instead he's going to try the most awkward team-up in the history of the comic books. They say that HRC brings the GOP voters to the polls. It also brings her supporters, though. They say that she provides fodder for GOP attack ads. That's okay: Obama should recognize that he's not getting an elevated discourse from his opponent, so why not have someone to draw the flak away from Obama. They say, "Seriously, Jason, these two HATE each other." I say, "If Obama wants to be the reconciliation candidate, he may as well shoot the moon."

Gergen says that HRC is the "come home" choice, and that she's cross between Sonny Liston and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Over at FiveThirtyEight, they cite a pair of more practical advantages. A reader notes:

"Clinton's presence may be able to gin up Republican fundraising...except, because they are taking public financing, the McCain campaign will have precisely one week to both collect AND spend that money. In short, absent some increase in RNC money and possibly 527 money, for the most part McCain's advantage here would be completely neutralized by the clock. If Hillary had been the VP nominee all summer long the Republicans would be dining out on this--but now they simply would not have enough time to do it."

And 538's Nate Silver says:

"I think that if Obama picks Clinton, the Republicans are likely to overplay their hand. One thing that Obama has not really been able to do is to generate some organic level of backlash when he is attacked. This is separate and distinct from the notion of "fighting back"; it is voters stepping in and refereeing the match themselves. Voters recognize that McCain has gone negative but they aren't really punishing him for it -- his favorables haven't moved at all. Why not? I think it has to do with the nature of Obama: he is new, he is confident to the point of being arrogant, and up until recently, he has been leading. To the extent there is any genius in the "celebrity" line of attack, it's that nobody feels much sympathy when celebrities are made fun of...it is a sort of sport to try and pierce their bubble.

With Clinton, on the other hand, voters naturally want to come to her defense -- and overzealous attempts to whip the Republican base into a frenzy will be counteracted with outrage from significant numbers of older and working-class women."

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/case-for-hillary.html

So there you have it! Vice President Clinton is officially the "So Crazy It Just Might Work Feelgood Hit Of The Summer." The news will shock the media and rock the convention. The Game Will be Changed. The Conventional Wisdom will be Overturned. The Revolution Will Be Text Messaged. And Ed Rendell will have a million billion orgasms. Everything you think you know about politics could be about to change!

But seriously, it'll probably be Bayh. Le sigh."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/21/the-game-changer-scenario_n_120467.html

TIME: Obama's VP: The Candidate Drops Some Hints

One reason for the feverish running-mate speculation is that those who actually know anything are a small, leakproof circle. And most leakproof of all is the man who is actually making the decision.

But in an interview (you can see and hear it here) that my colleague David Von Drehle and I did earlier this week for our convention issue, Barack Obama offered some clues as to how he is approaching the decision, and--to my ear, at least--a sense that he had pretty much made up his mind.

The question I asked Obama was what his choice of a running mate would tell the country about Obama himself. Here's what he said:

"Hopefully, the same thing that my campaign has told the American people about me. That I think through big decisions. I get a lot of input from a lot of people, and that ultimately, I try to surround myself with people who are about getting the job done, and who are not about ego, self—aggrandizement, getting their names in the press, but our focus on what's best for the American people.

I think people will see that I'm not afraid to have folks around me who complement my strengths and who are independent. I'm not a believer in a government of yes—men. I think one of the failures of the early Bush Administration was being surrounded by people who were unwilling to deliver bad news, or who were prone to simply feed the president information that confirmed his own preconceptions."

So let's do some deconstruction, read some tea leaves, and try to figure out who Obama is--and isn't--talking about:

"I try to surround myself with people who are about getting the job done, and who are not about ego, self—aggrandizement, getting their names in the press..."

Okay, so the first qualification he mentions is someone who won't be all that interested in getting his or her name in the media. That would seem a high bar for the famously voluble Joe Biden to clear.

"I think people will see that I'm not afraid to have folks around me who complement my strengths..."

Obama is both gifted and precise in the way he uses language. Here, interestingly, the word he chooses is "complement," not "supplement" or "augment." This would suggest that this choice will be someone who has experience or expertise that Obama himself lacks, rather than a pick--such as Bill Clinton's of Al Gore in 1992--that reinforces his message. My guess here is that is not good news for either Governor Kathleen Sebelius or Tim Kaine. Though both have executive experience that he doesn't, their chief political assets are much the same as Obama's, in that they bring an ability to blur party lines.

"I'm not a believer in a government of yes—men. I think one of the failures of the early Bush Administration was being surrounded by people who were unwilling to deliver bad news, or who were prone to simply feed the president information that confirmed his own preconceptions."

This may well be the most telling part of his answer. It sounds as though he is offering a rationale for picking someone who has disagreed with him in the past on something big, and the Iraq War immediately leaps to mind.

All that put together, if I were to guess who it would be based strictly on what Obama himself has said, I would say the pick is either Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana (low profile, both executive and foreign policy experience, but a supporter of the Iraq War), or a surprise whose name has not been circulating on the pundits' short lists.

And of course, we'll know the answer soon.

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/08/obamas_vp_the_candidate_drops.html

The Bubble Boy
by Georgia Logothetis
Fri Aug 22, 2008

McCain's "Housing Crisis" is about much more than a pampered candidate losing track of how many cribs he and his heiress wife own. McCain's wealth, while certainly on the upper edge of the spectrum, is not an anomaly among candidates. Indeed, both Clinton and Kerry, like McCain, rank among the top ten richest Senators. The purpose of McCain's "housing crisis" isn't to hold McCain's wealth against him. The man married, and he married well. But when McCain's lifestyle is held up against his policies, it serves to inform voters about his perspective and his judgment.

That McCain is divorced from the struggles of the American middle class has become patently obvious. In 2006, as Michael Clark reminded us, McCain made clear that he didn't think Americans could pick lettuce for $50 an hour (some $100,000 a year). In June of 2008, McCain couldn't remember the last time he actually had to pump gas, and he didn't answer the question as to what the price of gas was at the time. In the same month, while conceding that offshore drilling would not have an immediate effect on gas prices, McCain argued that drilling in such a manner would have a "psychological impact" that would be "beneficial." In other words, there would be no direct relief to the middle class, but it would make us feel as if "something"-albeit a meaningless "something"--was being done. I suppose if you don't have to pump your own gas, you can feel good about offshore drilling that doesn't lower the price of a gallon.

A month later, in July, we learned more about McCain's perspective when his friend and co-chair of his campaign, Phil Gramm, stated that America was a "nation of whiners" and that current economic woes reflected only a "mental recession." While McCain quickly distanced himself from the comments of his most trusted economic adviser, significantly, McCain did not withdraw or modify the economic plan that Gramm himself had crafted. In other words, while Gramm was quietly shoved to the sidelines of the campaign to ensure McCain's political survival, his economic plan, which reflects the view that America is a "nation of whiners," is still embraced wholeheartedly by John McCain.

And just what is that economic plan? Token tax cuts for those "whiners" while the wealthy receive true relief from the federal government. As detailed in the Washington Post several months ago:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"[T]he Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are both proposing tax plans that would result in cuts for most American families. Obama's plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html

To see why McCain's "Housing Crisis" is so relevant, one need look no further than this graphic accompanying the Washington Post story:

http://images.dailykos.com/images/user/28416/GR2008061200193.jpeg

Note that 60% of taxpayers would see less than a 1% cut in taxes under the McCain/Gramm plan.

If McCain's plan mirrored that of Barack Obama--in other words, if his economic philosophy reflected the notion that the government should aid those Americans who need it the most, not those who need help the least--then whether McCain remembers if he owns one house or one dozen houses would be a simple campaign gaffe rather than a major story.

However, where, as here, a candidate's economic worldview is so skewed in favor of the super-rich, of those 147,000 families which make of the top .1% of taxpayers, and when that candidate's economic policy provides no real relief to millions of American families struggling to make ends meet in one home, then a gaffe becomes a inadvertent confession of irrelevancy.

afternoon everyone,

boy, I am just tying to imagine, get the feel of having so much, materially, that, I do not even know how much I have...and god, how nice it must be to have a wife who takes care of all the financial stuff so John doesn't have to worry his pretty gray head about whether it is three or five or seven abodes to lay that pretty gray head in, not to mention all that internet stuff she handles so her man of the house, the king of his seven castles, doesn't have to worry his pretty gray head. Yes, he can spend all his time and energy pounding his chest, staking out his territory so he can be king of the USofA.

Oh, well, if your are not a MCBush or a Trump most likely you have, only, the ONE is the lonliest numbe,r of homes, in which to lay your head and worry about that mortgage payment...let's see mortgage payment, or college tuition, or groceries, or car payment, or heat bill, or shoot...gotta fill the tank, again, darn...gee, it must be nice to have so much I don't even know how much I have......hmmmmmmm...boy if only....who knew that serving the public paid so well...well, not as much as the wife pays....but..still

ponderings again on a bee..u...tee...full...afternoon....ruth

Hey, quit ragging on Arizona, it’s tough enough cheering for your home team and finding positives where the negative lives. We’ve suffered a lot of loosing seasons in football and politics, but every dog has it’s day. And now we have two dogs in the race this fall, and I believe (hope) we’re going to have our first winning season in both races, however we always find some outlandish way to loose, because tripping over our own feet is a given.

All kidding aside, I like the idea of drawing comparisons between sports and life‘s occupations, and I think sports will always come out as the purest form of work. Besides sports, politics seems like the only occupation that is publicly scrutinized down to the last team member, except in sports the players can’t lie, spin, hide or change their mind about their track record, for stats are undeniable in sports. There will always be the cheaters in every occupation and religion, and sports have their issues in the way of steroids, but it’s identifiable and prosecutable. It’s well defined, not tolerated, and their held accountable, however lying in politics is expected and tolerated. I guess you can say, sports is the only occupation where one is held up to, or compared to, a set of hard reachable goals before one can claim worthy enough to be the best at their position. All who enter are evaluated by a high standard which was set by those who went before, and it is not subject to another’s personal illusion of the way it should be, and all have to work towards that high standard that’s been recorded accurately, in depth, and in stone. ~Kurt~

Hi Gotham,
"Maybe he just needs to do something unpredictable to re-invigorate the base, throw us a bone, something like hint Snoop Dog will be part of his cabinet"

Does Joe Biden count?

:)

~ Kate