Category: I Hate Politics Page 4 of 7

My thoughts on Debate #2, while it happened *

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On October 8, 2008

In Amusing (if only to me), I Hate Politics

I wonder how many more times John McCain is going to say, “I know how to do that,” or refer back to the ’80s, or say “my friends” tonight. 6:27pm

I think I just heard McCain call Obama “that one.” 6:50pm

Uh, oh, here it comes. 7:14pm

I can’t believe he pulled out the “a ‘K,’ a ‘G,’ and a ‘B'” line again! It was lame the first time. 7:20pm

(Maybe he forgot he said it last time.) 7:21pm

I think you, too, should check out the comments on FoxNews.com. You decide. 7:42pm

I laugh at Pat Buchanan claiming McCain came in with “more heart, and more fight”. MSNBC’s token Republican. At least he’s repeating “Bomb, bomb Iran”…. 7:44pm

I am wondering why Brian Williams just said on NBC that there’s “one month” left until the election, when it’s FOUR WEEKS from now on November 4th. (Not a month!) 8:00pm

(I think Tom Brokaw said it at the end of the debate as well, actually…) – 8:01pm

I am done liveblogging (livestatusmessaging?) the debate, to the relief of all, my friends. 8:01p

*(this material originally appeared in a slightly modified form on Facebook)

If you need any more incentive to give to Barack Obama

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On September 23, 2008

In Amusing (if only to me), Culture, I Hate Politics, President Barack Obama, Recommendations

Miranda and Carrie
Miranda July and Carrie Brownstein have thoughtfully compiled a (mildly humorous) range of choices for how to contribute to Barack Obama, including the option of purchasing up to three videos produced eight years ago for $10 a piece (which will then be contributed directly back to Obama).

I say, right on.

Tom Ridge Defends “John Bush”

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On September 5, 2008

In Amusing (if only to me), I Hate Politics

Oh, no, he didn’t.

Oh, yes, he did, in the #1 Freudian slip of the election so far: Tom Ridge defends “John Bush,” aka John McCain!

“everyone sane has already been eliminated from the power structure”

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On September 2, 2008

In Amusing (if only to me), I Hate Politics

In Welcome to the Terrordome on This Modern World, Jonathan Schwarz argues that “living through the decadent phase of the American empire is going to be REALLY EXCITING,” as evidenced by McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Oh, my. Read it. Then weep, or laugh, or both, hysterically. Or just sigh because you know it’s true and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Thoughts?

McBush celebrates as New Orleans drowns

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On August 29, 2008

In I Hate Politics

McBush celebrating as New Orleans drowns

“That’s Bush and McCain celebrating the latter’s birthday in Arizona exactly three years ago today – just as New Orleans was being inundated. The cavalier cluelessness….”

Hat tip: DavidNYC of Daily Kos.

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946

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On August 7, 2008

In Communication, Culture, I Hate Politics, Life, Miscommunication, Picky, picky., Rants, Recommendations

Apparently I’ve never posted a link to this essay by George Orwell. Now I’m rectifying that situation. Read it now.

From George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946:

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a “party line.” Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, white papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder — one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

Greenwald on the anthrax story

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On August 4, 2008

In I Hate Politics, News

Here’s something important you may have missed: Yes, the U.S. Army scientist under suspicion for perpetrating the anthrax attacks of 2001 died recently, right before he was to have been indicted.

But it’s come to light that, immediately after the attacks, numerous sources told ABC News and others that the anthrax was linked to Iraq because it was laced with Saddam Hussein’s chemical calling card (my phrase).

That turned out to be a lie, yet ABC News is now obstructing the truth by refusing to out their sources.

In “Journalists, their lying sources, and the anthrax investigation,” Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com makes a case for why they must reveal their sources (emphasis mine):

…numerous experts in “journalistic ethics,” such as they are… agreed that while the obligation of source confidentiality is close to absolute, it does not extend to a source who deliberately exploits confidentiality to disseminate lies to the public. Under those circumstances… a reporter is not only permitted, but required, to disclose the identity of the source who purposely used the reporter to spread lies.

“An Honor That Bush Is Unlikely to Embrace”

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On June 25, 2008

In Amusing (if only to me), I Hate Politics

If only I lived in San Francisco, so I could vote for the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

To ponder on election day

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On June 3, 2008

In Amusing (if only to me), I Hate Politics

If Senator Barack Obama finally proves that he can win the Democratic nomination for President today or tomorrow… after the snowball effect of building a grassroots movement, winning Iowa, raising millions of dollars online, and winning 11 straight primaries…

Does that mean he’ll have put the finishing touches on the Obama-nominatable Snowman?

Bob Barr declares for President…

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On May 13, 2008

In I Hate Politics, Video

as a Libertarian… and he has some interesting things to say about the two major parties.

I find it very interesting and very revealing to hear a Southern Republican former Congressman (and Reagan appointee!) say this about the party he was in for decades:

The one thing that matters to Republicans above all else and to the exclusion of virtually everything else — other than raising money — is to elect people to office and keep people in office.

Principle and substance has no longer anything to do with what the party stands for, particularly at the national level.

He also touches on the fact that the “Democrat” [sic] Party has “fallen into the same trap: the trap of incumbency.”

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