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Unfit for Publication Corsi's The Obama Nation filled with falsehoods Summary: In its preface, Jerome Corsi compares his new book, The Obama Nation, to his 2004 book Unfit for Command. The comparison seems apt: Just as Unfit for Command contains false attacks on Sen. John Kerry's military service, a Media Matters review finds that The Obama Nation similarly contains numerous falsehoods about Sen. Barack Obama.
The McCain and the Veterans VoteA couple of months ago, Time magazine posed the question: “Does McCain Have a Vets Problem?” The question hardly fits into the existing media narrative — John McCain is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War. He shouldn’t, the argument goes, have any trouble winning over the support of other veterans.
But the narrative is incomplete, to put it mildly. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave McCain a grade of D for his record of voting against veterans (Obama got a B+), while the Disabled Veterans of America gave McCain a 20% vote rating. The Vietnam Veterans of America compiled a list of key votes, and found McCain voted against the group’s position 15 times and with the group eight times. (Obama, in contrast, voted with the VVA 12 times, and against it only once.)
With that in mind, when McCain went to Las Vegas over the weekend to speak to the Disabled American Veterans, perhaps it shouldn’t have been too big a surprise that the presumptive Republican nominee received lukewarm support.
Sen. John McCain, speaking to disabled veterans Saturday in Las Vegas, attacked his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, for his foreign policy record, while also proposing a program that would allow veterans to acquire health care at private hospitals and not just through the Veterans Affairs Department.
The veterans, at Bally’s for their national convention, gave him a tepid reception, especially considering McCain’s life story.
McCain the Antichrist?Biblical scholars in Colorado Springs have uncovered startling evidence that Senator John McCain may be the Antichrist. Their conclusions, while highly controversial, may have a dramatic impact on the 2008 elections, since many Bible-believing Christians have already expressed doubts about McCain’s fealty to Christianity.
The analysis was conducted by the respected True Bible Society, and it will be published next month in the End Times Journal.
The analysis was especially ironic, given that it came out just one day after McCain was accused of subtly hinting that Barack Obama could be the Antichrist. McCain ran a commercial depicting Obama as “The One,” giving rise to charges that he was sending a subliminal messages to anti-Obama Christians.
“What started us looking at this issue is the fact that Senator McCain has declared his intention to maintain US forces in Iraq for a hundred years,” said David Jenkins, a leading Biblical scholar. “That means that McCain wants to control Babylon for at least a century.” According to many scholars of the Book of Revelation, the Antichrist will try to rebuild the ancient city of Babylon in order to use it as a springboard for an international effort at world domination. Ultimately, the Antichrist will marshal forces from Babylon to spark a showdown with Christian and Jewish-led forces in the battle of Armageddon.
“We believe that the End Times is near, based on the pattern of wars, earthquakes. and other strange phenomena we’ve been witnessing since the start of the New Millennium,” said Jenkins. “Given that it may be imminent, the person who controls Babylon must be the Antichrist.” Until 2003, many Christians believed that Saddam Hussein might be the Antichrist, since he started excavations to restore Babylon in the mid 1970s. But Hussein’s death meant that the Antichrist is someone else. Since Obama wants to get out of Iraq, he can’t be the Antichrist either, concluded Jenkins.
Jenkins said his teams suspicions were further heightened when genealogical research showed that McCain’s great-grandfather was actually not John McCain, but John Mihai. Mihai is an ancient Romanian name, and according to Bible-believing Christians, the Antichrist is likely to be a Romanian. “What clinched it for us was that the name Mihai means ‘who is like the Lord,’” said Jenkins. “As far as we’re concerned, that was enough. It means that McCain might easily pretend to be the Redeemer.”
McCain’s geniality and folksiness are consistent with his being the Antichrist, Jenkins said. “Many people think that the Antichrist will be a evil-seeming leader, but in fact the Bible tells us that he will be charming.”
Confronted by Brewer over falsehood, Corsi responds with two moreWhen MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer pointed out that Jerome Corsi falsely claimed in his new book, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality (Threshold Editions, August 2008), that Sen. Barack Obama did not dedicate his memoir, Dreams From My Father, to his mother and grandparents, Corsi responded with two more falsehoods. Media Matters for America has previously identified one of the two falsehoods, but there's another. In responding to Brewer -- in addition to misrepresenting the falsehood that Media Matters for America identified -- Corsi also falsely suggested that it is only in the 2004 edition that Obama dedicates Dreams from My Father to his family. In fact, both the 1995 and 2004 editions of Dreams contain an introduction in which Obama dedicates the book to his family.
During an interview with Corsi on the August 5 edition of MSNBC Live, Brewer, citing a report by Media Matters on The Obama Nation's numerous falsehoods, pointed out that contrary to Corsi's assertion that Obama did not dedicate the book to his mother or his grandparents, "it says right in the introduction that it's dedicated to his family." Corsi responded, in part, "In the introduction that he wrote after, this was going with the second book." In fact, Obama's statement, "[i]t is to my family, though, my mother, my grandparents, my siblings, stretched across oceans and continents that I owe the deepest gratitude and to whom I dedicated this book," is included in the introduction to both the 1995 edition (page xi) and 2004 edition (page xvii) of Dreams.
Tire Gauges and Senator ObamaWho knew that telling people to properly maintain their vehicles for maximum gas efficiency was some sort of craaaazy gaffe?
Let’s review. The other day, Barack Obama mentioned to voters in Missouri that there are things individuals can do to help conserve energy, including bringing their cars in for regular tune ups, and keeping their tires properly inflated. It seemed like a rather unremarkable thing to say.
But at this point, Republicans can’t seem to stop commenting on just how remarkable they think this is.
That Obama is so crazy! But Republicans Arnold Schwartzenneger and Charlie Crist said the same thing:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif., and Charlie Crist, R-Florida, according to the Los Angeles Times "appealed to those with the real power to make change -- average citizens -- to drive slower, keep engines tuned and tires properly inflated, to buy hybrids and lower overall consumption."
Remember, Crist is on McCain's shortlist, and Schwarzenegger would be a shoo-in for the veep nomination if he wasn't foreign-born. Of course, they didn't realize at the time that speaking of common sense, practical ways to increase one's gas mileage and save money would get in the way of the last GOP anti-Obama smear.
Oh, and those liberals at NASCAR are also talking crazy.
Tires are the Rodney Dangerfield of the automotive world. Even though they're the only component of the car that actually touches the pavement, tires "get no respect."
Tires influence the braking, steering, comfort, handling, fuel efficiency and driving safety of every vehicle, but are often ignored or misunderstood by many consumers. Tires pound over potholes, careen off curbs and screech to a halt, but the prevailing public sentiment is, "They're round, black and have tread. Beyond that, who cares?"
With gas prices now hovering around $3, smart drivers care. Savvy consumers are seeking to increase fuel economy and the life of their tires by paying more attention to those rubber objects that are attached to their vehicle [...]
Tires that are underinflated by 6 to 7 pounds per square inch increase tire rolling resistance 10 percent or more, increase tread wear rates and tire fatigue. When a tire is underinflated, the tire's road contact zone and cyclic stress level changes resulting in undesirable loss in tire and vehicle performance [...]
With escalating fuel prices, the time is now for drivers to focus on simple things like proper tire pressure to maximize tire performance and increase fuel economy.
Someone wave a tire gauge at Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Dale Earnhardt Jr! Craaaaaazy!
Is this the 2008 version of the purple bandaid?
Content courtesy DailyKos
Running While BlackGee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office - say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford - the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.
Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”
There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us - the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.
Since then, Senator McCain has only upped the ante, smearing Mr. Obama every which way from sundown. On Wednesday, The Washington Post ran an extraordinary front-page article that began:
“For four days, Senator John McCain and his allies have accused Senator Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.”
Evidence? John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he - Senator Obama - would not have to lose an election.
Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.
The Republican National Committee targeted Harold Ford with a similarly disgusting ad in 2006 when Mr. Ford, then a congressman, was running a strong race for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee. The ad, which the committee described as a parody, showed a scantily clad woman whispering, “Harold, call me.”
Both ads were foul, poisonous and emanated from the upper reaches of the Republican Party. (What a surprise.) Both were designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.
The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches - a man who obviously does not know his place.
Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this - the sole reason - is that he is black.
So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.
Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”
The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.
But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign - playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.
Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation.
Did McCain's foreign-policy advisor profit from the Iraq warAs recently as last year, John McCain's senior foreign-policy and national security advisor, a neoconservative who played a leading role in pushing for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, was trying to use his role in promoting the Iraq war to make money off Iraqi oil. In a confidential memo, a company called World Strategic Energy, for which top McCain aide Randy Scheunemann was an executive consultant, told prospective investors that Scheunemann could help World Strategic Energy win oil contracts in Iraq because he was well-connected in the Iraqi exile community and had been a "key player" in getting the U.S. involved in Iraq. The memo was first published by blogger and Salon contributor Lindsay Beyerstein, who wrote that the 44-page brochure-style "placement memorandum" was being circulated to potential investors as late as 2007.
