Category: Blogroll

McCain Flipflops on Keeping Tires Inflated, Is Forced to Agree with Obama, NASCAR, AAA And Common Sense That It Does Save Gas

Jon Ponder

What’s truly unbelievable here is not that John McCain has done yet another remarkable 180 on a position he adamantly took just three days ago — or even that he believed making a controversy out of tire inflation would work against Obama when his campaign operatives suggested it.
“And could I mention that Sen. Obama a couple of days ago said that we ought to all inflate our tires, and I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it.”
– John McCain
What is hard to fathom is how studiously the media has avoided mentioning McCain’s latest about face, which occurred during a conference call with supporters Wednesday night:

“And could I mention that Sen. Obama a couple of days ago said that we ought to all inflate our tires, and I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it, but I also don’t think that that’s a way to become energy independent.”

Maybe not, but experts agree that properly inflating tires could make a big difference:

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, “every pound per square inch of tire underinflation wastes 4 million gallons of gas daily in the U.S.” Survey information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that 27 percent of the cars on the road have a significantly under-inflated tire…

“[The] production offset is … likely to approach 800,000 barrels per day -– a tidy sum and a worthwhile target for savings, but not equal to [Outer Continental Shelf] output,” [wrote Frank Verrastro, Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).]

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Michelle Obama on International Best Dressed List

Trish

Vanity Fair’s 2008 International Best Dressed List has been announced, and Michelle Obama is on it.

The magazine chose this stunning dress to illustrate its choice, but listed several other outfits as well, including the “Maria Pinto purple sheath, with a black Azzedine Alaïa belt, worn when her husband claimed the Democratic presidential nomination.” That was also — who could forget? — when she offered him the so-called terrorist fist jab.

I have long thought Michelle Obama reminds me of Jackie O., another woman known for her style and relaxed glamour. At 5’11” of course, it’s probably easier to relax.

Others singled out by Vanity Fair for their unerring taste included:

  • Fran Leibowitz
  • Sarah Jessica Parker
  • Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mathilde of Belgium
  • Matt Lauer
  • David Beckham
  • First Lady of France Carla Bruni-Sarkozy
  • Kanye West
  • Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

There were also lots of other people including a bunch of attractive furriners I never heard of.

But what about Cindy McCain in her trim little suits and pearls, usually looking slightly pissed off, pretty much bored, and like she would flinch if John McCain accidentally touched her?

Not on the list.

McCain Played ‘Age Card’ on Comedy Shows

Jon Ponder

As part of his stump speech, Barack Obama has been preemptively describing how the Republicans are going to use fear tactics to convince the “low information” crowd to vote against him in November. On June 20, in Jacksonville, Obama said it this way:

“It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy … We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. ‘He’s young and inexperienced, and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?’ ”

After Karl Rove-puppet Steve Schmidt took charge of the McCain campaign a month ago, the new team was reportedly biding its time, looking for an opportunity to use Obama’s statements to charge him with playing the race card — and, not for nothing, neutralize his warnings to voters about Republican scare tactics.

On July 31, Rick Davis, the McCain operative whose job Schmidt took, rolled out the new line of attack. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck … It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’

The corporate media — which is quickly reverting to the depths of the pre-Katrina see-no-GOP-evil that was its hallmark in the 2000 and 2004 elections and, especially, during the run-up to Bush’s invasion of Iraq — is playing into the Republicans’ hand by pretending it doesn’t understand that, if anything, Obama was playing the “racist” card against the Republicans, which, based on their past performance and his ethnic background, he is entitled to do.

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Exxon Posts Another Record Profit; McCain Says We Can Trust Them

Trish

Exxon CEO Texan Rex Tillerson, whose compensation in 2007 was $21.7 million, including $1.75 million in salary, a $3.36 million bonus for record-breaking profits, and $16.1 million of stock and option awards

Exxon has broken its own profit records yet again, this time for the quarter that ended June 30. As you know from listening to the oil companies, there is no correlation between $4 per gallon gas and this phenomenon.

The world’s largest publicly traded oil company said net income for the April-June period came to $2.22 a share, up from $10.26 billion, or $1.83 a share, a year ago.

Revenue rose 40 percent to $138.1 billion from $98.4 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

It’s hard to comprehend that kind of money when your brain is more used to calculating 15 percent off on the $6.99 pair of shorts at Beall’s Outlet.

McCain: Shame is enough to force oil companies to do the right thing

But John McCain, whose reward from the oil industry for changing his policy on drilling American shorelines was a campaign check for $1.1 million, feels my pain. He explained to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on This Week, when asked what McCain would do differently than Bush to help the economy, his idiotic gas tax holiday would have helped poor people driving gas guzzlers.

McCain: There are many steps that can be taken, absolutely, including a gas tax holiday. Everybody —

Stephanopoulos: There’s not a single economist in the country who says it works.

Mc: And there’s not a single economist who knows very well the low-income American who drives the furtherst (sic) in the oldest automobile that sometimes can’t even afford to go to work.

St: But they all say that’s not who’s going to get the benefit. The oil companies, the gas companies, are going to absorb —

Mc: You know, they say that, but if one, it didn’t happen before, and two, we wouldn’t let it happen. We wouldn’t let it happen, Americans wouldn’t let them absorb that.

St: How would you prevent it?

Mc: We would make them…shamed into it. We of course know how to, American public opinion, and would penalize them if necessary but they wouldn’t. They would pass it on.

You really have to watch the clip to get the full effect. The part quoted starts at 6:28 and ends at 7:12. McCain is blustery and incredulous that there could be any question his new BFFs would try to make even more obscene gains than they’re making now. Except they are already calling for more.

But [Exxon] investors expected even bigger profits Thursday, especially after Europe’s Royal Dutch Shell reported a 33 percent jump in second-quarter earnings of $11.6 billion, which fell just shy of Exxon’s own record earnings from 2007.

McCain’s right about one thing. “Shame” is the word to use when talking about oil company profits.

Obama’s ‘Honeymoon’ With MSM Just Another Republican Fantasy

Buck Banks

There are numerous myths swirling around the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama. He’s a Muslim. He hates Jews. His wife is uppity. But one of the most enduring chestnuts — that Obama gets a pass in the media while Old Maverick Sen. John McCain has to answer the hard questions (like what’s the diff between a Shiite and a Sunni) has been demythified by the new report from the Center for Media and Public Affairs.

Major findings (based on a scientific content analysis of election news stories that aired on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Fox Special Report) include:

Since the primaries ended, on-air evaluations of Barack Obama have been 72 percent negative (versus 28 percent positive). That’s worse than John McCain’s coverage, which has been 57 percent negative (versus 43 percent positive) during the same time period.

This is a major turnaround since McCain and Obama emerged as front-runners in the early primaries. From the New Hampshire primary on January 8 until Hillary Clinton dropped out on June 7, Obama’s coverage was 62 percent positive (38 percent negative) on the broadcast networks; by contrast, McCain’s coverage during this period was only 34 percent positive (66 percent negative).

Obama ran even farther behind McCain on Fox News Channel’s Special Report with 79 percent negative comments (21 percent positive), compared to 61 percent negative comments (39 percent positive) for McCain since June 8. During the primaries Obama had a slight lead in good press on Fox, with 52 percent favorable comments (48 percent unfavorable), compared to 48 percent favorable (52 percent unfavorable) for McCain.

Obama’s bad press has come at a time when he was much more visible than McCain. Since June 8, he has been the subject of 120 stories on the three network evening news shows, 50 percent more than John McCain’s 80 stories.

So where does this myth come from and why is it perpetuated? You guessed it — Fox News. Here are results from a recent Fox survey:

Nearly seven in 10 Americans (67 percent) say they believe most in the media want Obama to win the November election — while a scant 11 percent think the media are pulling for John McCain. Moreover, only about one in 10 (11 percent) volunteers the belief that the media is neutral on the race to become the 44th President of the United States.

When asked to rate the objectivity of media coverage of the campaigns, Americans feel Obama gets more of a positive spin by a better than seven-to-one margin (46 percent more positive toward Obama; 6 percent more positive toward McCain). Just under four Americans in 10 (36 percent) says both campaigns are being covered objectively.

Fox asked fair and balanced questions like “Have you heard any of your friends and neighbors say there is something about Barack Obama that scares them?” To which 49 percent said yes and 50 percent said no. To be fair, they asked the same question about McCain, and only 36 percent said their friends and neighbors found McCain scary.
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Pimping Out America’s Coastlines: McCain Gives the Speech, Oil Companies Give Him the Bucks

Trish

Straight talkin’ maverick John McCain has a knack for sniffing out money. First he married it, now he’s trying to sell out America’s coastlines for it.

And it’s working.

Campaign finance reform expert: “This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money.”

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month — three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban…

McCain delivered the speech before heading to Texas for a series of fundraisers with energy industry executives, and the day after the speech he raised $1.3 million at a private luncheon and reception at the San Antonio Country Club…

“The timing was significant,” said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group that conducted the analysis of McCain’s oil industry contributions. “This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money.”

How do McCain’s handlers react to charges he’s a sleezy, spineless, Bush knock-off, money whore?

Brian Rogers, a McCain campaign spokesman, said he considers any suggestion that McCain weighed fundraising into his calculation on drilling policy “completely absurd.”

…”John McCain takes positions because he thinks it’s the right thing to do for America,” Rogers said…

Oil and gas executives have not traditionally been a major source of campaign money for McCain.

But they are now. Mission accomplished!

What Obama’s Note Said

Trish
AP photo of Obama at the Western Wall

A rabbi is outraged that someone stole the prayer Sen. Barack Obama stuffed into a crack of Jerusalem’s Western Wall. We agree, but we’re still curious about what the note said.

…as soon as [Obama] doffed the requisite skullcap and left, a snoop pulled a folded piece of paper from a crevice in the ancient wall and offered it to the mass-circulation Maariv. The newspaper’s decision to publish it Friday, under the headline “Obama’s note,” provoked a storm of criticism in Israel over an intrusion into his relationship with God…

Shmuel Rabinovitz, the rabbi who manages Judaism’s holiest site, was furious.

“The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker,” he told Army Radio. “It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them.”

A very good policy, we agree. Stealing Obama’s note was a total invasion of privacy.

O.K., so what did it say?

“Lord — Protect my family and me,” the unsigned note said. “Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.”

If you were hoping Obama’s prayer included asking God’s help or forgiveness for anything nefarious, you’re no doubt disappointed. But it might not even be his note.

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki, traveling with the candidate in London, declined to confirm or deny the note was the senator’s. The Associated Press reported, however, that the handwriting in the photograph published by Maariv appeared to match Obama’s inscription Wednesday in the guest book at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.

The note was written on stationery of the King David Hotel, where Obama stayed during his visit this week.

All righty then.

But you know, except for the pride and despair part it’s pretty close to what I — and probably most of us — pray.