YES YES Maani.  I agree with you 100%.  Obama would have raised his status enormously and done the US a real service if he had chosen to run as a “multi-racial candidate”—which is exactly what he is. If he does become president he will not be the first ‘black’ president—which the feeble minded MSM have tended to call him.
And YES.  The current crop of prsedential aspirants have “invited . . scrutiny” by parading their religious predelictions in front of everyone. The rest of the worlkd must surely look on it all with amazement.

Hmmm!  Good point Tom.  I’ll remember to do that next time.

Ernest, how come you didn’t put ‘God’ in quotation marks? And used ‘creative’ instead of ‘destructive’ or ‘demented’? And ‘thinking’ instead of ‘fantasizing’?

God is but the product of creative thinking.  The drubbing we are getting is self-inflicted.

Any society that elevates demented dolts perched behind pulpits to positions of respect, deserves the drubbing ‘god’ is dispensing upon us.

Yeah, you might say that Hagee is McCain’s soul mate.

What this country needs is a ‘god’-inspired, religious attorney to run this nation right into the ground.

Perhaps the gleeful Joel Osteen, or his vacuous wife, could pick up an LLB from some store-front law school in Waco, and jump in the campaign.

Or maybe the idiot son of the ‘Crystal Cathedral’ entrpreneur could get one of his parishioners to pass the bar for him, or Hagee could forge a diploma based on a Tel Aviv Talmud, or Robertson could audit a couple of courses at Regent School of Law.

And once one of these yo-yo’s was installed as president, a great revival would take over the land, as all US citizens, secular included, knelt and prayed to ‘god’ that he smite our leaders, and restore us to sanity, at least those of us unafflicted by the malignant ‘god’ gene.

And we could finally pass legislation putting a bounty on the head of lawyers.

Here in Canada a recent poll shows that—as far as the public at large is concerned—the most trusted and admired professions are:

doctors, teachers and the police.

And the most mistrusted professions are:

journalists, politicans and lawyers.

Similar polls in the US might not produce exactty the same result but there is no doubt that lawyers would rank low in citizen’s esteem. 

No one, in their right mind would fail to recognize that there ineed many non self-serving lawyers but the maddeningly ridiculous litigation nonsense needs to be taken care of by lawyers themselves in order to raise their ranking. 

Incidentally, as an outsider, I have been amazed to see, on this forum, that those with left wing leanings think the news media are controlled by the right wing.  And the right wing feels the other way round. The truth obviously resides somewhere in the middle.  The trouble is that journalists are not much inclined to provide real insight into what is going on.

Places like TruthDig do help to foster genuine discussion unlike the MSM.

I am saddened not only by the level of ignorance but by the visceral hatred DC has directed against a profession, each of whose members takes a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution and laws of this nation. (Of course, from the sophistries used by some Justice Department lawyers to justify torture, it can be said that not all lawyers live up to that oath.) From the level of his discourse, I suspect that years of therapy would be required to straighten him out.

But let’s look at the track record of some of our so-called “leaders” who were not lawyers.

Ronald Reagan & George H.W. Bush:  Ushered in the “greed-is-good” philosophy and deregulation schemes that opened the door to the scamming of markets, reduced taxes for the wealthy while creating an enormous increase in military spending.  Funneled WMD & intelligence to Saddam Hussein so the latter could carry out the Iran/Iraq war; funded and armed the Afhgan mujahideen & Osama bin Laden, who they called “freedom fighters” when they were fighting the Soviets--the very same mujahideen that would morph into al-Qaeda.  Used illegal arms sales to Iran to help fund the Contras who were carrying out terrorist attacks on civilian targets in Nicaragua while sending John Negroponte to Honduras where he oversaw the death squad activities against the poor in Honduras, El Salvador & Guatemala.

George W. Bush & Richard B. Cheney:  Brought us an Orwellian endless “war on terror” against a phantom menace who is anywhere and everywhere at all times as a cover for a naked power grab; destroyed checks & balances & the rule of law, ended the right to habeas corpus for non-citizens, brought forth warrantless NSA eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, treated the national treasury as if it was the personal piggy bank of Bush’s “base--the haves and have mores;” lied to Congress & the American people in order to conduct an imperial aggression against the sovereign nation of Iraq, dismantled FEMA, turning over disaster relief to “faith-based” organizations prior to Katrina; saw in the Katrina devastation an excuse to radically transform New Orleans by imposition of the same privatizing scheme used in Iraq, destroyed the economy.

And DC would tell us that John “okay if we stay in Iraq for 100 years” McCain would be a better choice because he is not a lawyer?

Exactamente! Were the media to play excerpts from Hagee, Robertson, Moon, Falwell et.al., the stories would be picked up world-wide.
And the world’s surprise and revulsion at the sheer stupidity and inanity of the American public that supports such raving imbeciles, would make it likely that they would join to obliterate them, or, at a minimum, isolate them to prevent the possible spread of such a devastating affliction.
The problem is, ‘them’ is US.

Just think of what will happen when Mrs. Clinton finishes up with Obama and sets her sights on her old friend John McCain. She would eat him alive in the general election.

Please forgive if this is a repeat, since I’ve forgotten if I posted it in the appropriate spot.
It definitely goes to what others, including Mark Sherman, have mentioned here. Crazy and powerful religious zealots aren’t new. They’ve done their damage before, whether we know it or not.

The Right’s America-Hating Preacher
By Robert Parry
Consortium News
Friday 02 May 2008

One of the advantages that the American Right has achieved from investing tens of billions of dollars in media - from talk radio and cable TV, to print and the Internet - is the ability to define what is and what isn’t a “scandal,” a powerful factor in determining who wins national elections.

By comparison, American progressives have short-changed their own investments in media. The disparity leads to the spectacle of Democratic presidential candidates submitting to questioning on Fox News while no one would expect a Republican leader to undergo interrogation from, say, the DailyKos.

On another level, this media imbalance has propelled the rantings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into the category of big news, effectively altering the course of Campaign 2008 by associating Barack Obama with his ex-pastor’s harsh - and at times over-the-top - criticism of the U.S. government.

However, it’s not news that a viciously anti-American religious figure has invested billions of dollars in financing the U.S. conservative movement and put fat wads of cash into the pockets of many prominent Republicans, including members of President George W. Bush’s own family.

While Sen. Obama has to explain what he knew and when he knew it about Wright’s angry sermons, the Bush Family floats above its financial and political associations with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a South Korean theocrat who had denounced the United States as “Satan’s harvest” and likened American women to “prostitutes.”

In his angry sermons, Moon has gone further than saying “God-damn America” - as Wright did - to vowing to sweep aside American democracy and individualism as he builds a one-world state.

Once his plan to “swallow entire America” is complete, Moon told his followers in one sermon, there will be “some individuals who complain inside your stomach. However, they will be digested.”

Full article at the link…

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050208K.shtml

And then there’s this from Frank Rich today, full of very helpful links…

The All-White Elephant in the Room
By FRANK RICH
Published: May 4, 2008

BORED by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.
What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04rich.html? em&ex=1210132800&en=e5d5126f1b93ece3&ei=5087

I’m NOT a lawyer.  Explain that.  BTW, how do you know Cyrena is a lawyer?  And what presupposes you to believe that ALL lawyers are “no good”..?  It would be superfulous to assume that ALL lawyers are “no good”, that’s just rhetoric.  Aren’t you “cherry-picking”?

Another thing. You claim ALL lawyers are “tainted by their close association with their original profession before they ever reach ‘the bench’” how is it that you make this claim?  What about lawyers who are “bought off” by the corps..?  Isn’t your assertion disingenuious..?

I would like to SECOND that!  Good job.

Thank you Conservative Yankee. Yes, there ARE bad lawyers out there..I’ve been cursed by a few myself.

HOWEVER, lawyers ALSO do all of the things that you’ve just described as well. And yep, some of us even do it for NO PAY, or very limited pay…

Like military lawyers as well...JAGS. They (as well as non military lawyers) have been hugely instrumental in getting attention and some semblence of legal assistance to at least a few of those that were captured and held without due process at Guantanamo.

So think of it this way, if you’re ever ‘disappeared’ and find yourself locked up in a gulag somewhere in Indiana of the Armadillo canyons of Texas, you better hope a somebody can find a lawyer that is willing to find you, and get you out.

And yes, they do all of that other stuff that you mentioned as well.

I agree. Let’s retire the broad brush on ALL stereotypes. It has proven to be far more harmful than informative.

We don’t need religion and we sure as hell don’t need lawyers. If you twist sh*t around to the point where you need a priest or a lawyer to explain the unexplainable you are doomed. We have a system where two people can’t iron out differences without brandishing hired pricks that can twist the truth to suit the situation. And win or lose both pricks get paid and both parties whether right or wrong come away worse off. How f*cking twisted is that? Religion is false and kept alive by magicians and the law is a close parallel. Without religion, the IRS and laws beyond “don’t hurt anybody else”, everyone would see the humbugs behind the curtains and we would soon have a clean house. But there’s no profit in that for the humbugs and so they protect their turf with all of the power and wealth that can be taken from the masses.

None of these candidates believe in “invisible friends” so get with it. They all pander to whatever cult members will get behind them. Then they pick the scabs off of each others’ backing cults. Obama was f*cked from the start, all of the good cults were already taken. You gotta give McCain credit, he got a really scary, paramilitary religious f*ck to back him. But there’s no cult backing scarier than Hillary’s campaign staff, I give her the cult nod. Religion is and always was clan warfare, nothing more.

You have the opportunity to accept what the candidates already know and when you do just a smidgen of control over your own life can be had. Lose your security blanket and start living. There is no tooth fairy. At least that’s what my dirt bag lawyer says and he should know he’s a minister on the side.

Thanks for the link, I think.  Wowie Zowie; it just never stops.  Hillary shouldn’t even be allowed to run.  Scotty, beam me up; NOW!!!

The issue of religion in the presidential race is front and center whether we like it or not.

And, it is complex, with many interesting elements.

Food for thought in the article ...

“Obama not ‘black’ enough for Jeremiah Wright?”

AmericanChronicle.com
May 4, 2008

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/60699

A good lesson in why it’s not prudent to paint everyone with the same brush, in any line of work or in any segment of society--even politicians and believe me, I had to grit my teeth to admit that.

Actually, Ernesto, McCain will most probably win as the ‘good lawyers’ in the Democrats (BO + HRC) have already more or less destroyed their own party.

Don’t forget, though, that all of you ‘good guys’ are sill only working within a totally corrupted and utterly inept system. That is NOT freedom - nor is it a path to freedom!

I note that you are only to happy to have so many ‘grateful’ clients but have you ever given a moment’s thought to the fact that they wouldn’t have needed you or your expensive services if the system treated them fairly and decently in the first place?

No, you lawyers are ALL so sadly committed to preserving the very system that feeds you - and thus owns you. You still do not want THAT evil entity to change - yet it is only through change that any good will evr come now.

The one basic truth I have learned after practicing law for more than 30 years is that everybody hates lawyers until they need one.  The corporate ruling class plays on this, deliberately referencing the words “trial lawyers” as a means to push things like so-called “tort reform” which are really code words for laws immunizing corporations from liability for the harms they cause.

Oh, for sure there have been those lawyers inside the Bush Justice Department who have disgraced the profession by issuing sophistries to justify torture, but there are an even greater number of lawyers working out of the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU who have worked tirelessly to challenge the Bush regime’s unending challenges to the rule of law.  It was a lawyer (later Supreme Court Justice) Thurgood Marshall who successfully argued that separate was inherently unequal in Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark decision leading the way to an end of segregation. It is the trial lawyers practicing “tort law” and product liability which forced American corporations to act responsibly, thereby saving the lives of many citizens; trial lawyers who led the charge for worker protections like OSHA and workers’ compensation.  But, hey, DC had a bad experience with a lawyer so we should all hate lawyers.

I will make no apologies for my profession.  There are good and bad people in law just as there are in any other profession, and I, for one, am proud of what I have done for many severely injured workers, who in turn have repeatedly told me there was no way they could thank me enough.

By the way, DC, if one’s status as a lawyer bothers you all that much, why aren’t you supporting Mad Dog McCain.  The guy’s not a lawyer.

By Dr. Knowitall, PhD, PhD, May 4:  Re: Reply to Tom Doff & Cyrena http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7007109937779036019 ......Expat, give this a try....  It’s about Hillary and Peter Paul.  Good luck and good viewing.  You’ll love it...”

I’d “love” if people actually discussed it, though. Its been floating around for a little while now and yet no comments.

If there is one thing in common with Obama and Hillary and most politicians (and cyrena?), they are all lawyers. If you’ve ever been a victim of one, you’ll know what I mean, uhh.

One of the problems on this site is that any criticism of legalism or lawyers or the judicial system is immediately attacked at length by cyrena who has yet another reason for denial and refusal in her dysfunctional psyche.

Perhaps we could all get past the agenda business and actually take a look at the very institution and its schools that is responsible for the main ills of America and societies around the world?

Judges are all nothing more than lawyers with some additional training in jurisprudence. They are already tainted by their close association with their original profession before they ever reach ‘the bench’.  So too are politicians and they continue their incestuous relationship to everyone’s cost.

Then again, there is still nothing conclusive in the video which mentions a tape with HRC speaking on the phone but we never actually get to hear the ‘incriminating’ part although we are told all about it. Is that a hatchet job?

Doctor KIA...I had to chuckle at your Mc Series...McEvils and McBama huh? That’s good.

My parents had some lifelong friends back in the day, and the husband of the couple was named “Bama. Or, that’s all I ever knew him by, even though I’m sure it couldn’t have been his given name. He was this really big and taller than life man, (or so it seemed to me) and an African-American from...you guessed it..Alabama. (lived in California the last 60 or so years of his life though).

Anyway, everytime I hear or read any abreviation of Obama’s name, I always think back to him, and the time that my dad and a couple of my uncles had to rush over to ‘Bama’s house during a really bad rain storm when his basement flooded. I can’t remember how old I was, but it was the first time I became aware of ‘bookies’...who they were, and what they did. That’s because it took them like a really long time to haul what turned out to be boxes and boxes and boxes of cash from the flooding basement.

My dad had needed to bring me along on the adventure because my mom at work. Kinda hard to get a baby-sitter on such short notice when a basement full of cash is flooding. Maybe my dad figured I was too young to even bother paying attention. He should have known better. I question EVERYTHING!! So, I guess that made ‘Bama a criminal, though he certainly looked and acted ordinary enough to me. (except for being so tall)

Anyway, I doubt Obama is a bookie. I can’t say the same for McSame-McCain or McSame-Hillary though.

Village Elder..

“...BTW if you can read this you missed the rapture…”

Whew!! Thank god (no real pun intended) you told us this!! I feel like I’ve been ‘saved’ or something.

Maybe I can get some rest now, and not have to concern myself about this rapture thing coming after me.

Are you sure it won’t come again?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7007109937779036019

Expat, give this a try.  If it doesn’t work, go directly to Cyrena’s link in this thread, below and you can click directly on that.  It’s about Hillary and Peter Paul.  Good luck and good viewing.  You’ll love it.

DKA, what video?  Do you have a link?  Much appreciated if you do.

YOU WON’T GET WHAT YOU WANT FROM OBAMA

******Tom Doff says Obama should “Lessen the influence of the Corporate mob.”

Would that corporate mob include these special interests Obama has accepted campaign money from? More important question is – what will these corporate mobsters expect from Obama in return? You can find this info at Open Secrets.

Obama received :
266,907 from Lehman,
$5395 from GMAC,
$150,850 from Credit Suisse First Boston,
$11,250 from Countrywide,
$9052 from Washington Mutual,
$161,850 from Citigroup,
$4600 from CBASS,
$170,050 from Morgan Stanley,
$1150 from Centex,
$351,900 from Goldman Sachs.

In addition Obama has taken other corporate monies. 

From USA Today (last updated mid-April)

Obama has accepted donations from oil and gas company employees — $222,309 in Obama’s case from donors from Exxon, Shell, Chevron and others, according to campaign-finance data. Two oil company CEOs have pledged to raise at least $50,000 each as part of Obama’s fundraising team.

“The point, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said later in a statement, was that Obama doesn’t accept money from oil industry lobbyists or their political action committees (PACs), while his opponents have no such policy.

The Obama campaign is trying to create a distinction without very much of a practical difference,” said a statement on the website of FactCheck.org, an affiliate of the University of Pennsylvania. “We’re not sure how a $5,000 contribution from, say, Chevron’s PAC would have more influence on a candidate than, for example, the $9,500 Obama has received from Chevron employees.

$193 million — and counting [from special interests]

The episode underscores the pitfalls confronting a candidate who rails against special interests while raising $193 million and counting — THE MOST OF ANY PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGH. [caps mine]
Obama’s fundraising tests the limits of his claim that he is independent of Washington’s influence industry because he doesn’t take money from federal lobbyists and PACs.

[…..]

“Obama’s 20 largest sources of money, grouped by employers, are executives from major corporations and law firms with a Washington lobbying presence — including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Google, according to the center. “

******Tom Doff says Obama should:  “Establish a priority list for government programs, with health care for all,”

Obama’s plan would not mandate all Americans participate. Obama’s plan simplt provides incentives that he thinks (hopes) all will take advantage of.

Concord Monitor:  15 million people would remain uninsured under Obama’s plan.’ “Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at MIT said a mandate means “the difference between universal or near-universal coverage. Obama would have a large expansion, better than anything the Republicans have, but not universal coverage,” Gruber said. “You can’t get it without a mandate; it’s just not possible.” [Concord Monitor, 12/26/07]

Len Nichols, Jonathan Gruber and Mark Pauly: ‘even with other cost saving measures and a child mandate, we think that it is very likely that a least 15 million American would remain uninsured.’ “Recent estimates suggest that a plan with uniform generous subsidies but without a mandate would cover no more than one-half of the uninsured in the U.S. New America Foundation, Policy Brief, 12/06/07]

Jonathan Holohan of the Urban Institute: ‘Obama would still leave about 22 million, 23 million, but he has a mandate for children, about 9 million uninsured kids, so assuming you get most of them, you get pretty close to 15 million.’ [New Republic, 12/03/07]

Wall Street Journal: ‘Mrs. Clinton charges that Mr. Obama’s plan would leave 15 million people without insurance. Outside experts agree that number is in the ballpark.’ [Wall Street Journal 12/04/07]
Washington Post: ‘The Obama plan could leave a third of those currently uninsured lacking coverage [47 million].’ [Washington Post, 6/9/07]

There seems to be some evidence that this impulse to god may be in our DNA.  Up until very recently our species understanding of the world/universe we live in was very incomplete.  That there should be a guide, shepherd, pilot or ruler made excellent sense.  400,000 years ago, from archeology we can extrapolate reasonable schema for the belief systems.  The residual of these beliefs, or similar artifacts and totems, are found among the most primitive peoples today. We too carry these residuals.

The notions of a clockwork universe has been with us for 100,000’s of years.  Since we became aware of the repetition of the the phases of the moon and weather cycles we have search for the controlling force or being.  It made sense up until our species reached the age of enlightenment/reason.  “God created and planned everything.” A statement that denies free will and suggests that all things are preordained.  I believe that this is still a popular belief in some circles.

I am amused by these folks, scary as they are, for they all know “god’s plan” and speak as if they give policy guidance.  How is it possible for a “mere human” to understand the thoughts, plans & etc. of this all powerful, all seeing, all knowing and eternal being?  Seem as if there might be more than one delusion a play here.

Despite their delusions these are a scary and powerful groups working in conjunction with the corporatist/fascist cabal that has seized our government.  As with all true believers the rest of us can convert to be “saved” or be part of an auto-de-fe to insure that the “faithful” are “saved”.  Besides the religious intolerance, I find the racism displayed in the treatment of the right wing preachers condemning this country and black, particularly if “left” leaning disgusting.

BTW if you can read this you missed the rapture…

Jeepers Tom Duff.  What you say is a little too close to the truth for comfort.

I have—like the rest of you—been trying to wrack my brains for a way out of the mess. 

Would it be any help if every vote for member of congress, senate or president or governor for tha tmatter had an official category for “none of the above”—which took effect if it gained the most votes by forcing a re-election with a larger slate of indenpendent candidates.  A huge part of the problem is the inability to get voted in without a massive amount of money at your disposal.

Since confidence in and anger with both the current president and the House of Representatives is at an all time low there ought ot be some way of allowing this anger to produce a result.

I read some while back about a senatprr who packed it in since he found he was spending far too alrge a percentage of his time raising money istead of doing the job for which he was elected.

John McCain is in charge of the straight doubletalk express.  All who blindly climb aboard think the man is actually a moderate, a Maverick, even the scourge of special interests--this despite the fact that all his conductors are corporate lobbyists.

Well said Knowitall.  The existing president and all three of the current presidential aspirants are “traitors to democracy”.  And, quite clearly voters can do nought else but choose the “lesser of the many McEvils”—or abstain or vote in vain for Ralph Nader. Talk about Hobson’s choce!
The terrifying thing is that even the “lesser” of the set of evilas may well be incapable of overhauling the system sufficiently to set it back on the right path—given that they are all far too beholden to the current day robber barons.

Not to worry, the Endtimers or End of Days folks or some such named band of zealots have assured us the world, and civilization as we know it, will end of May 15th 2008.

Thanks for your ideas. I wish I could be as confident in the dems. ability to counter the “goddamn America” ace-in-the-hole of the repubs.

In my mind, it’s the patriotic thing dems have to contend with.  You’ve got “war hero” McCain vs. the “G.D. America” sympathizer.  Your idea of driving home to the electorate the notion of Bush’s unpatriotic/unconstitutional behavior and McSame’s juxtaposition might be the answer. 

Since I’m for neither, and I accept that a Nader-type is not going to emerge and present voters with the real Truth about McBush, McCain, McHillary and McBama, i.e., they’re all traitors to our democracy and working class people--look at where we’ve now come in just the last several months--I guess the lesser of the many Mcevils might be McBama. I’m not sure the dems have the necessary equipment to get him elected, though. 

I did watch the McHillary video first posted by Purplegirl and it opened my eyes.  Thanks.  I don’t suppose one would find an equivalent for McBama and that’s a plus.

Ya know ...I’ve just read and viewed all the stuff from Bill Moyers Journal, and several related articles from The Nation as well. And yeah, now I’m afraid to fall asleep..I’m sure I’ll have horrible nightmares. Purple Girl wasn’t kidding about how terrifying these people are.

Anyway, it seems to me that if more folks were aware of this CUFI..Christians United for Israel, the Hagee Organization, and the Foundation for the Near Enders - the Apocalypse Now crowd is what I call them, there would be ZERO chance or time for McCain to be indulged in any on-slaught of Obama.

In fact, there is NOTHING ‘on’ Obama anyway, which is why they had to take this relatively unknown African-American Pastor from Chicago, and attempt to turn him into a monster.

But, a few minutes of listening to some of the ideology of the Hagee crowd, and their very crazy anti-Christ stuff, should be enough to scare anybody enough to run McCains ass right out of dodge!

But, it means making the appropriate connections known. For most Americans, (regardless of their political party affiliation) these people can be easily enough dismissed as crazies, UNTIL we become aware of JUST HOW MUCH they have commanded the entire foreign AND domestic policies of the US. Folks who read and contribute to this and other blogs may be aware of that, (to a greater or lesser degree) but I think I can safely make the claim that a huge portion of the voting population DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE about the political power of this group.

Even those who are aware of the group don’t have a clue to the real motivations and ideology that serves as the foundation, and they don’t know or understand the politics involved AT ALL. And these are not stupid people as much as they’ve been brainwashed by propaganda, and dumbed down. For MOST average Americans, Israel is simply a place in the Middle East, and they haven’t a CLUE to the dominating and destructive alliance that the current political regime shares with Israel.

I’m not making excuses one way or the other for them, but that IS the reality. Most Americans are simply not aware of this. If they were, we would never have been highjacked by this Cabal to begin with.

So, maybe it’s time to examine and expose the real poison of this group, because if Hagee and his CUFI group can blast away on all of these radio stations and TV and all the rest, without the viewers having even a clue of what “United for Israel” really MEANS, then we really are in the END TIMES, and for most of the population, they will have never seen it coming.

That said, if there’s a connection to be made, it would make as much sense to concentrate on the McCain-Hagee connection than on the Bush as spiritual leader to McCain thing. (how many folks are gonna believe that anyway?) Besides, Cheney and his staff (David Addington, Scooter Libby, etc) are the point people in the destruction that we’ve lived though these last 8 years..not Bush. How many Americans even know that?

Not everybody reads and blogs, though the die hard bushies do, and they aren’t going to be deterred anyway. They’re all over this blog and others, explaining away and lying and denying about everything these thugs have pulled off on us.

If average Americans need to know and understand the McCain is more of the same, they probably need to know the whole rotten core of it all.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10052007/watch2.html

There’s a horror movie/video with John Bolton included at this same link.

Some pols are (or have been) pedophiles too, Sang Ze.

But, if its about race, its also about religion, at least in the Western mind. “White is right” so they have to have a god to endorse them as something “divine” instead of admitting their true animalistic nature.

Don’t be so naive...... denial is the choice of preference of insane whites. In the end and in their small minds, they have nowhere to go on this planet if they can’t rule, uhh!

Well, I’m with Tom Doff on pulling a reverse swift-boat campaign, since it’s the only thing that seems to energize the most dumbed down among us. I hate that of course, because I hate personal destruction politics.

So, maybe Obama said he wasn’t gonna indulge in such, and I’m grateful and appreciative of his stance. Doesn’t stop the rest of us from fighting fire with fire though, especially where our own survival is concerned.

For starters, (and to kill a couple of birds with one stone) if we’re gonna show how connected and SAME John McCain is to Dick Bush, we might as well show how connected and SAME Hillary Clinton is to Dick Bush as well, making her (what we already know) the SAME as McCain. They’re ALL republicans!

Now here’s an interesting video on a case currently pending against Hillary Clinton. (Peters v Clinton) right here in California. Thebeerdoctor posted this, and I was amazed, because of course I wasn’t even aware of it. But then, that’s really the whole issue...these people have the power to squash anything they want in the press, and create anything they want, (the Obama-Wright thing) for press/public consumption.

So, here’s a video that’s very informative, and a link to another piece by Paul Krugman on McSame as Bush.

Hillary uncensored:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7007109937779036019

Bush Made Permanent
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Monday 28 April 2008

As the designated political heir of a deeply unpopular president - according to Gallup, President Bush has the highest disapproval rating recorded in 70 years of polling - John McCain should have little hope of winning in November. In fact, however, current polls show him roughly tied with either Democrat.

In part this may reflect the Democrats’ problems. For the most part, however, it probably reflects the perception, eagerly propagated by Mr. McCain’s many admirers in the news media, that he’s very different from Mr. Bush - a responsible guy, a straight talker.

But is this perception at all true? During the 2000 campaign people said much the same thing about Mr. Bush; those of us who looked hard at his policy proposals, especially on taxes, saw the shape of things to come.

And a look at what Mr. McCain says about taxes shows the same combination of irresponsibility and double-talk that, back in 2000, foreshadowed the character of the Bush administration.

More at the link..like his tax plan

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042908L.shtml

While I’m at it…might as well include the link to Hagee from Bill Moyers Journal.

Christians United for Israel (CUFI)

“If a line has to be drawn, draw it around Christians and Jews. We are united.”
-Pastor John Hagee, CUFI Founder

“John Hagee, along with other Christian Evangelical leaders, created Christians United for Israel (CUFI) less than two years ago, yet it has already grown into one of the largest and most politically influential Christian grassroots organizations in the country.”

“When 50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel, it is a match made in heaven.”

Watch an extended version of Hagee’s keynote address at A Night to Remember Israel, 2007

Dr. Hagee founded and is the Senior Pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, a non-denominational evangelical church that has more than 18,000 members. He is also the President and CEO of John Hagee Ministries, which he says boasts a television and radio audience of 99 million homes.

See it all at the link

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10052007/profile.html

AND DON’T FORGET THE BALNKET FEVER DONE UNTO THE NATIVE AMERICANS BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. EVEN THOUGH IT WAS NOT A DIRECT ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT AT THAT TIME, IT WAS SUGGESTED BY HIGHER UPS IN THE MILITARY AND GUESS WHAT? IT HAPPENED. THESE UNDERHANDED CORRUPT PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF DOING THE UNTHINKABLE-ALL INTHE NAME OF GREED TO TAKE WHAT IS NOT RIGHTFULLY THEIRS, FOR THEIR OWN BENEFITS, REGARDLESS OF THE OUTCOME TO THE INNOCENTS.

I agree. But I have always wondered why, if these people who claim they believe in God so much, why are so hell bend on killing others. After all, didn’t one of their superstitious commandments tell them that, “thou shall not kill?”

I’d pull a ‘reverse’ on the republican swift boaters, substituting Bush for Rev. Wright, and McCain for Obama.
Each time they criticized Obama for supporting Wright, show McCain supporting Bush. Each time they showed Obama disavowing Wright, show McCain disavowing Bush.
Identify Bush as McCain’s ‘preacher’, and ‘spiritual leader’.

Also, Dr. Knowitall, I’d get MoveOn, or someone, to sponsor a series of 15 second commercials, running continuously during the campaign, each featuring one of the innumerable Bush administration lies, as featured in Mother’s time-line of lies, and tie each commercial to Bush/McCain, with ‘Want more of this?. If not, Obama’s the one’.

Blueboy, The drumbeat is one that has been concocted by the corporate media.  If they did not continue to play the loop over and over and over again, the whole Wright thing would have faded almost the moment it was reported.  The only reason McCain’s open embrace of Hagee has not reverberated is precisely because the news media gives McCain a free pass at every possible juncture.  Another example occurred last January when the New York Times printed a front page article that reveals that McCain, while claiming to be the scourge of special interests, has accepted free air travel from media moguls and then intervened at the FCC on their behalf--the very thing he did for Charles Keating during the Keating Five scandal when he was reprimanded by the Senate in a scandal that cost U.S. taxpayers $3.2 billion when Lincoln Savings & Loan went bust. 

While the pundits on the corporate propaganda networks, aka cable, took up the article, it was only to criticize the Times for printing that McCain’s aides thought McCain might have had an affair with Vicky Iseman, the lobbyist for Lowell Paxson, the media mogul upon whose behalf McCain intervened.  (Iseman was only one of the numerous lobbyists embedded in the McCain campaign). The same pundits who have done Wright wrong, made no mention of the substance of the Times piece which exposed McCain’s claim that he is the scourge of special interests as a concocted white wash.  So that story did not reverberate in the press.

Your insistence on condemning the “God Damn America!” reference implies that people have taken offense because they think Obama’s pastor was calling on God to condemn America.  The only reason they believe that is because they, like you, have not seen the quote within the full context.  The full context exposes the lie in the effort to suggest that Wright had asked God to condemn America, but then even when you expose some people to that basic truth, they prove incapable of comprehending such a subtle but fundamental distinction.

I am not interested in “debating” someone who is too lazy to search for the truth.  Opinions that are not based on facts are worthless.  Trying to debate someone who holds to opinions irrespective of truth is pointless.

Finally, the issue is not whether the “9/11 terrorists have a legitimate gripe.” There can be no justification for the crime they committed.  But that is not what the Wright chickens coming home to roost statement was about.  In Biblical terms it is simply the axiom that violence begets violence.  When you invade another country, when you drop bombs on civilians in another country, when your troops storm into their houses in the dead of night, dragging out men who had committed no crime and throw them into dungeons like Abu Ghraib where you subject them to torture, you are going to create enemies.  You are going to create new generations of people who will want to strike back at the U.S.  That is not “my” assessment.  It is the assessment of our own intelligence agencies.

Note:  I didn’t call you stupid.  I called you lazy.  You have the ability to move past the propaganda and search out truth on alternative media.  But even when you are told where to find it, you prefer to come back with your uninformed “opinions.” How sad!

Were I Obama, I’d revert to my persona before the Wright controversy erupted, modified by adopting the McCain ‘Straight Talk’ mode, but for real, with teeth.

I’d identify McCain with Bush, as inseparable entities.
(Plenty of sources to tap, to prove it). I’d identify McCain as a ‘Speaker with Crooked Tongue’, and a flip-flopper (Plenty of sources to tap, to prove it).I’d do the above, each time I was attacked. Keep reminding folks that the group McCain represents have proven to be despicable liars, with horrific consequences for this nation, and the world.

But first and foremost, I’d say, specifically, what I was going to do as president. Reverse the powers Bush and Cheney have illegally assumed for the White House and it’s inmates. Cancel the assaults on the Constitution embodied in the Patriot and other acts. Restore the people’s belief in the sanctity of their personal rights. Lessen the influence of the Corporate mob. Lessen the influence of the Zionist mob. Appoint people of integrity, and deal harshly with them if they violate my, and the people’s, trust. Put together a citizen’s group to identify areas of corruption and malfeasance in government. Provide an award program for whistleblowers, if their charges are proven true. Provide incentives to government employees who make suggestions that improve the performance and/or reduces the cost of government.
Establish a priority list for government programs, with health care for all, and a vastly improved education system at the top of the list. Continue the US’s generosity to other nations and peoples when help is needed, but make certain that our own nation and people are cared for first.
Basically, I would call a spade a spade. And I would refer to Bush/McCain as a passe, outmoded, horrific experience, to be replaced by Hope, and Progress, and Truth, and Justice, and Fairness, for all.
My theme would be, ‘Let’s Make the US Number One Again’.

When is the MSM going to catch on to the real story behind all these controversies about Hagee, Wright, the pope, et.al. It’s staring them right in the face, and they haven’t caught on yet.

THE ANTICHRIST HAS COME TO EARTH, AND HE HAS ASSUMED MANY GUISES, SIMULTANEOUSLY.

He is the Pedophilic Priests, and the Putz-Pope who protects them. He is the demented Robertson, who constantly takes the lord’s name in vain, as he pleads to increase his earthy goods. He is the deranged Hagee, who plans for the apocalypse by instigating it, and seeks the destruction of a nation and it’s people in order to ascend to ‘heaven’. He is the ranting Wright, who ‘knows’ that his view is ‘THE’ view, that his belief is ‘THE’ belief.

He is all those who profess to speak for christ, to take his place, for that’s what an antichrist is.

He is all earthly ‘Men of ‘God’’, they are the Antichrist(s).

Want to support the Devil? Go to church. Or vote for a Bush supporter.

I’d be curious to hear your idea how the Obama campaign might respond to the coming onslaught by the McCain camp.

We anti-republicans are not only well aware of republican ineptness in governing, but we also recognize their amazing ability to carry on a campaign that keeps the voters focused in on the non-issues, like in this case, Obama’s disloyality to his minister of many years and his sudden repudiation of Wright’s anti-America tirade.

How do you think, Tom Doff, the Obama campaign should prepare for this coming nailing to the cross or burning at the stake of Obama?

My comments are in response to the article.  The article, in case you have forgotten, was about the differential treatment of McCain vs. Obama by the media and the implication that is racist.  My points are that McCain’s acceptance of some nut case endorsement from somebody he hasn’t had a long, and I mean 20 years long, association with is not as newsworthy as “the story that just keeps on giving.” As I said before:  Wright speaks.  Obama responds.  The media report.

As for my knowledge, I do not denigrate others’ knowledge or lack thereof, and I expect to be treated the same.  I have not been, and you know it.  I don’t claim superior knowledge to anyone, but I certainly have enough to formulate an opinion about the topic that we’re supposed to be responding to: media bias.

Conspiracy theories may be accurate, or they may not.  What does that have to do with the judgement call by a rising pol who surely knew that his pastor was saying things that would reflect on that, after he sat, apparently not disapproving, for 20 years listening to someone make outrageous statements.  Whether Rev. Wright has evidence that AIDS was inflicted on African Americans by their government, whether the 9/11 terrorists had a legitimate gripe, or whether the United States has or has not done reprehensible things, justifiable on some level or not, are totally beside the point.

He said “God damn America.” Some people take offense at that.  Sen. Obama belatedly says he takes offense at that.  His campaign has been thrown off stride by the continuing Wright drumbeat and his own contorted efforts to deal with that.  It has hurt him at a critical juncture.  It is newsworthy, aside from any considerations of his or Rev. Wright’s race.  McCain’s collection of right wing-nut endorsements, while disheartening, is not on the same level of newsworthyness.  If you all want to debate whether Wright was right, go ahead.  But that was not the thrust of Mr. Boyarsky’s premise.

Yep, Hagee and his ‘movement’ are frightening; indeed terrorizing. I remember reading a very lengthy piece well over a year ago, on Bush and these ‘near-enders’ who allegedly want to make sure that the apocalypse occurs during their lifetimes, (is that the same as the “Rapture”?) Supposedly, there are 40 million of this cult.

But there is another that we hear little of, and seeming far more dangerous. That would be the cult of the Rev Sun Myung Moon. His ‘organization’ has been connected to the Bush Dynasty for several decades now. He seems to operate in plain sight, but with little or no attention from the MSM.

Here are a few excerpts…it’s a very interesting connection.

“..it’s not news that a viciously anti-American religious figure has invested billions of dollars in financing the U.S. conservative movement and put fat wads of cash into the pockets of many prominent Republicans, including members of President George W. Bush’s own family.

While Sen. Obama has to explain what he knew and when he knew it about Wright’s angry sermons, the Bush Family floats above its financial and political associations with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a South Korean theocrat who had denounced the United States as “Satan’s harvest” and likened American women to “prostitutes.”

In his angry sermons, Moon has gone further than saying “God-damn America” - as Wright did - to vowing to sweep aside American democracy and individualism as he builds a one-world state.

Once his plan to “swallow entire America” is complete, Moon told his followers in one sermon, there will be “some individuals who complain inside your stomach. However, they will be digested.”

But Moon’s hatred of America is not deemed news, in part, because Moon has financed the Washington Times since 1982 to the tune of more than $3 billion, according to former newspaper insider George Archibald.

Moon also has lavished many millions of dollars more to pay for conservative conferences and to bail out key right-wing figures when they have found themselves in financial distress, including Republican direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie and the late Jerry Falwell.

Plus, Moon has paid large speaking fees to former President George H.W. Bush - estimated in the millions of dollars - and has feted President George W. Bush’s brother Neil at recent events for the Moon-sponsored Universal Peace Federation.

In 2004, thankful Republicans even gave Moon use of a room in the Senate Dirksen Office Building so he could be crowned the “King of Peace” in a ceremony that Moon’s followers hailed as proof the U.S. government was bowing down to this new Messiah. [See John Gorenfeld’s Bad Moon Rising.]

Yet, even though Moon has gained influence by funneling huge sums of mysterious money into the U.S. political process - and to the Bush Family - he has avoided the intense scrutiny that has fallen on Rev. Wright, who until recently was a little-known black preacher from Chicago’s South Side.

Moon’s influence on the American Right and his largesse toward the Bush Family have remained virtual non-stories. That’s been the case even though Moon may represent a key nexus between international crime and the U.S. political elite.

When Moon is discussed, he’s usually presented as simply the wacky Unification Church cult leader who somehow parlayed carnation sales by his followers into a vast global fortune.

What is almost never referenced are his long-standing ties to organized crime and international drug smuggling, including the Japanese yakuza gangs and South American cocaine traffickers. Even first-hand accounts of Moon’s money-laundering from insiders like his former daughter-in-law Nansook Hong draw no U.S. media attention.”

More here:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050208K.shtml

Excellent post, non credo.  But I can’t help but add how amused I get whenever I hear the self-centered phrase “God Bless America!”

If God only blesses America, what does He do to the rest of the world?

Like you, Non Credo, I’m an atheist.  However, I am always intrigued by a fundamental theological question that arises when I hear religious scam artists like Hagee advocating an assault on a foreign nation like Iraq (not to mention the billionaire televangelist Pat Robertson urging that we assassinate the president of Venezuela).

Tell me, my good Reverend Hagee, just ‘who’ would Jesus have bombed?  Tell me Pat Roberson, oh wise man of the cloth, whom would Jesus have assassinated?

Whether we deal with Iran or coming up with a sham “vacation” from the gas tax, there is very little difference between Hillary Clinton and John McCain.  Neither of them is qualified to be President.

(1) So if all Republi-crooks pander to the fanatic policies of the religious right, that somehow makes it okay?  I suppose it didn’t matter that Bush’s first FEMA director, Joe Albaugh, thought that FEMA was an overblown entitlement organization which the administration dismantled so as to delegate the task to faith-based organizations, producing disasterous results after Katrina.  It doesn’t matter that John McCain advocates an aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East that could bring about a nuclear conflagration also serve the ultimate goal of end-timers like John Hagee in advancing Armageddon?  It doesn’t matter that the Republic-crooks have led an assault on science and the rule of reason, trying to replace the science of evolution with the pseudo-scientific “intelligent design” (creationism) in our “public” schools?  Hey, they’re Republicans.  They’re allowed.  Why criticize them.

(2) If the media totally distorts the thrust of what Wright was saying, that’s okay too?  It is obvious that you did not take the time to actually watch the Moyers interview; that you are lazy and would prefer to blindly accept the propaganda the corporate media feeds you than make the effort to research why Wright linked 9/11 to blowback from U.S. imperialism.  If you, and your pal Bert, the Hillary supporter who will jump on just about anything to attack Obama, had even a modest education you would appreciate the validity of Wright’s critical comparison between the ancient Roman and modern U.S. Empires.  As noted by Chalmers Johnson in “Nemesis,” in 2005 the U.S. listed 737 overseas bases “worth at least $127 billion--surely far too low a figure but still larger than the gross domestic products of most countries.” U.S. military bases cover “687,347 acres overseas and 29,819,492 acres worldwide, making the Pentagon easily one of the world’s largest landlords.” “These numbers, although staggeringly big, do not begin to cover all we occupy globally.”

The presence of our military garrisons even in friendly nations, creates massive foreign resentment, especially since the U.S. routinely evades application of the law of the occupied nation to the base or to our troops through Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs), as for example Article 6 of the SOFAs in Japan and Korea which exempt our bases from having to comply with local environmental laws.  In Okinawa, members of U.S. armed have been spirited away by U.S. authorities who refused to turn them over to local Japanese authorities to face charges for the rape and beating of Japanese women, even in the case of very young girls.  You see the same type of blanket immunity from local law being imposed on Iraq and Afghanistan not only for the members of the armed forces but for all so-called “contractors” including the murderous mercenaries from Blackwater.

The notion that all these bases exist out of benevolence is a myth.  They are there to protect the business interests of the American ruling class, even when those business interests entail an outsourced factory that used to pay good union wages in the U.S. and now pays $2/day in some foreign sweat shop.

You want to know why they hate us?  It’s not because they hate our freedom but because they hate our arrogance and our very presence on “their” lands.  That is what Wright was talking about when he said 9/11 was the U.S. imperial chickens come home to roost.  And there is nothing really controversial about that.

The ideology of this maniac is far more terrifying than being exp