WTF version 1.1

[Lurker]

You have linked NOTHING that shows the McCain camp has cast invalid VOTES

Since nobody outside of Ohio or the NY Post is even covering this non-story I'll link a NY Post article, one you probably haven't read because Drudge didn't link to it.

The talks came in the wake of reports that workers in both camps - including McCain's Ohio communications director, Ryan Meerstein, and Obama campaign worker Jacob Smith - had registered and cast ballots in the Buckeye State, even though they both maintain permanent residence elsewhere.

It's been verified that Meerstein submitted an absentee ballot. The Obama supporters had the integrity to come forward and remove their votes after the rules were clarified, and the McCain people didn't. Your outrage seems misdirected.

========

Harlowe you also claim your biggest concern is the privacy of private citizens.

Is this what we can expect from Obama supporters or an Obama administration?

From the article you posted:

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why.

Isaac Baker, Obama's Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay's statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. "Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated. If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully," he said.

So the question should be, is this sort of false and unsubstantiated accusation what we can expect from Jecks during the Obama administration?

[Harlowe]

Oh please Jecks, unlike you, we don't sensationalize shit that hasn't been vetted or at least we'd include a caveat like "hey this is from XYZ news source so ...it might not be accurate". We don't post news items from tabloids then demand people respond to it the way we require them to or "face Jeck's judgment TM". You linked something from the New York Post, that wasn't being sensationalized any where as the part you left out said "the prosecutor said that nobody knowingly violated the law". You used Rupurt Murdoch's tabloid newspaper as your source - and expect people to have an indignant, overly dramatic fit over it - else they don't really care about people's privacy?

Warrantless Illegal wire-taping? McCain supports Bush's stance on this. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/us/po ... ref=slogin I don't see anything from you on this. Voter suppression? The GOP using voter suppression tactics to challenge actual citizens over things like address changes, foreclosures or even purging voter rolls? http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/ ... ion_guide/, http://www.brennancenter.org/ Don't see anything about that from you? FBI privacy violations? Nothing?

No, you don't care about larger privacy issues and personal liberties. What we see from you now is sensationalistic bullshit delivered dramatically, demanding people respond a certain way. It's irrational and frankly, dishonest. You are clinging to Joe the Plumber as if it's the most important issue of our time. It's ....pretty weird.

You use isolated situations with individuals to tie back to Obama - where we all say the culprits, these INDIVIDUALS, should face legal action. Just as those that behave in a manner that is illegal on McCain's side should as well. Those individuals are not the responsibility of entire campaigns or parties. You try to conflate each of these situations as a reason to be outraged at Obama.

How about real issues?

Here is a perfect example of why libertarians of various stripes and support Obama; as Scott Flanders the CEO of Freedom Communications (if you have a libertarian bent, you know this media company as it was founded by the libertarian publisher R. C. Hoiles) said, he is the best candidate to work on four top libertarian reforms:

Flanders reasoned that Obama is the best candidate to work on four top libertarian reforms: 1) Iraq withdrawal, 2) restoring the separation of church and state; 3) easing off victimless crimes such as drug use; 4) curtailing the Patriot Act.

Another statement I couldn't agree with more...
Why libertarians should vote for Obama

First, war. War is the antithesis of the libertarian philosophy of consent, voluntarism and trade. With every war in American history Leviathan has grown larger and our liberties have withered. War is the health of the state. And now, fulfilling the dreams of Big Brother, we are in a perpetual war.

A country cannot long combine unlimited government abroad and limited government at home. The Republican party has become the party of war and thus the party of unlimited government.

With war has come FEAR, magnified many times over by the governing party. Fear is pulling Americans into the arms of the state. If only we were better at resisting. Alas, we Americans say that we love liberty but we are fair-weather lovers. Liberty will flourish only with peace.

Have libertarians gained on other margins in the past eight years? Not at all. Under the Republicans we have been sailing due South-West on the Nolan Chart – fewer civil liberties and more government, including the largest new government program in a generation, the Medicare prescription drug plan, and the biggest nationalization since the Great Depression.

Frankly, I don't believe we'll see any honest discourse from you at this point. Just judgment, name-calling and your own version of diversion from real issues - tabloid editorial.

[Ddrak]

What exactly are you trying to do, Jecks? You seem to be searching for a reason to back out of your previous statement that you'd be voting for Obama, or at least that's what it looks like. The stuff you've posted in this thread has just been flat out ridiculous:

First we have a scenario where people from both sides registered and voted improperly, and the prosecutor in the case openly stating that no intent to commit fraud was present and that no charges would be laid. (Even a simple search of google news brought that much up). Somehow you're saying this is a coordinated plan to commit vote fraud? WTF indeed...

Secondly we have a case where we don't even know who accessed the records (by your own quote) and somehow you're swallowing the McCain line that it was Obama's camp. Note that Obama himself is calling for a full investigation? Honestly, it sounds like people with access to the system watched the debate and let their curiosity get the better of them and just went poking around. Why the assumption of malice?

This is the third time you've been posting rabidly biased and unfounded partisan crap. WTF? If you don't want to vote for Obama then just go vote for McCain. There's no shame in changing your mind after thinking things over. You don't need to drama queen it up with blatant political hackery.

Dd

[Trollbait]

lol, you guys are too much. I have not seen this type of reaction since a naked atheist ran into the Vatican screaming that Jesus was not real.

[Lurker]

Pathetic.

Instead of pretending you were just after a reaction (which is always your dodge when you get smoked), why not show some courage and own up to being wrong.

[Harlowe]

First, we get the "oh so you aren't going to answer the question" line/admonishment when we try not to take you too seriously, then the "oh my god look at the reaction" line/ridicule when we do. That really is pretty sad.

I think I'd rather be looking at the world through "Lurker's ballsack" than having my head lodged so deeply within a "Plumber's sweaty asscrack", I can neither hear nor see reason.

ETA: By the way, it's okay to change your mind. McCain isn't evil incarnate, there are legitimate reasons why people would prefer him. There is no absolute right or wrong in this election - only what each of us think is going to be best for our country at this point and time and it's fine to disagree on legitimate points. There are always multiple ways to look at each issue. What is not okay is to be divisive and dishonest about it. To say one way or the other is anti-American or that one area of the country is pro or anti-American, real America or fake America or that witch hunts should commence to figure out who is pro or anti-American in our government. It is wrong to use religious beliefs as an insult, to use race as an insult. Because by who's standards should this all be judged? It's to each of us to vote for who our conscience and intellect tells us would be best for the country we live in and whatever that answer is personally for us all, is the right answer.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

ETA: By the way, it's okay to change your mind. McCain isn't evil incarnate, there are legitimate reasons why people would prefer him. There is no absolute right or wrong in this election - only what each of us think is going to be best for our country at this point and time and it's fine to disagree on legitimate points. There are always multiple ways to look at each issue. What is not okay is to be divisive and dishonest about it. To say one way or the other is anti-American or that one area of the country is pro or anti-American, real America or fake America or that witch hunts should commence to figure out who is pro or anti-American in our government. It is wrong to use religious beliefs as an insult, to use race as an insult. Because by who's standards should this all be judged? It's to each of us to vote for who our conscience and intellect tells us would be best for the country we live in and whatever that answer is personally for us all, is the right answer.

Amen. There is no wrong vote. We'll all still be Americans on Nov. 5th, and it's my hope that regardless of who wins the election, we as a country will keep our eye on the ball. We can't afford not to.

[Harlowe]

Since this was another lame WTF post, that really had no "wtf" other than why it was posted in the first place, I might as well do the same wtf-support thing. Probably equally lame, but at least it's actual facts and not regurgitating tabloid headlines.

Ken Adelman...neocon for Obama? wtf
http://themoderatevoice.com/politics/ne ... for-obama/

Recent wtf endorsements with comments compliments of Wonkette the DC Gossip.

# Ken Adelman: Neo-con insider, hired by Rumsfeld in the Nixon Administration and was a top guy both times Rumsfeld was defense secretary — under Ford and Bush Junior. “He introduced Cheney to Paul Wolfowitz at a Washington brunch the day Reagan was sworn in,” the New Yorker writes. Well, maybe he’s just trying to get some good karma before he dies. No impact with voters; nobody really knows him outside of Washington. But it gives more elderly Republican elitists the freedom to also break with McCain, because McCain is “impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird,” according to Adelman.

# William Weld: A U.S. attorney and Justice Dept. official hired by Giuliani during the Reagan administration, Weld was the Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1991-1997. God, it’s really the same dozen people who’ve been fucking up this country for half a century. So, Weld’s also trying to avoid the Fires of Hell, and has heartily endorsed the black communist Barack Obama.

# Arne Carlson: Former governor of Minnesota, lifelong Republican, this “maverick” said batshit goon Michele Bachmann’s freakout on Hardball helped make his decision to endorse Obama. Will matter to moderate Republicans and independents in MN, and could hurt Bachmann’s bloodied campaign, too.

# Scott McClellan: The former Bush spokesman is already a Demon-Queer to the wingnuts because of his mildly critical book about his White House years, so his Obama endorsement will not sway those people. But he’s well known because he was on the teevee all the time, promoting Bush and the GOP, so this could help in the mysteriously “undecided” category. Or those people might vote for Jennifer Aniston, who knows?

# C.C. Goldwater: The granddaughter of conservative saint Barry Goldwater says she will say yes to Kenyan Socialism, too — along with “my siblings and a few cousins.” The libertarian side of the GOP peeled away long before Obama got the Democratic nomination, but this might still matter in places where the Goldwater name is still powerful. Places like Arizona, where “favorite son” John McCain was famously hated by Barry Goldwater.

# Charles Fried: The solicitor general in Reagan’s second term and one of those few “conservative intellectuals” left on the planet, Fried was actually part of the McCain campaign until last week. After he endorsed Obama, Fried “asked that his name be removed from the several [McCain] campaign-related committees on which he serves.”

Alaska's largest Newspaper endorses Obama ...wtf
http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/567867.html

Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

New Gallup pole shows 75% of US Jews support Obama. Okay not really wtf, because it shouldn't be surprising because that's the % that supported Kerry, but I had thought originally there was a bit of trepidation towards Obama at the beginning of his campaign, but no longer. It's highest amongst the over 55 group, so perhaps Silverman's The Great Schlep has been successful..............that's a joke btw.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1031176.html

How about some scary WTF stuff....

Anger, Fear and Racism follow Palin Rally, I know...this is shocking right?
http://www.lasvegassun.com/videos/2008/oct/22/983/

McCain Communications Director Gave Reporters Incendiary Version Of "Carved B" Story Before Facts Were Known (the story Drudge pushed)
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpoints ... rs_inc.php

[Trollbait]

own up to being wrong

Since I am an honest person I would of had to have been wrong in order to admit to such. I am saddened and shocked that you would attempt to solicit a dishonest admission from me.

[Lurker]

You aren't fooling anyone but yourself. You were wrong and aren't man enough to admit it.

[Harlowe]

I am sure the next outrage will be Drudge's latest desperate attempt to be relevant - the pieced together (if you expected the full interview within context, don't hold your breath, it's just pieced together with baiting comments)- Drudge headline: 2001 OBAMA: 'REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH'; WARREN COURT NOT LIBERAL ENOUGH!!!!
Enjoy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck

I am sure we'll get to see plenty of equally dramatic & desperate headlines from Drudge and The New York Post for the foreseeable future. Well, since the race-baiting attack hoax didn't pan out, or the Muslim thing or the fake birth certificate ....this is next desperate attempt at a smear before election day. Ground-breaking, game-changing, bombshell UNCOVERED!

[Harlowe]

***** In spite of the many game-changing, bombshells received compliments of spam e-mails & Drudge

Along with a plethora of Nobel laureate economists and business people like Warren Buffet, and conservatives like Brink Lindsey of Cato, Jeffrey Hart, Francis Fukuyama, Douglas Kmiec, and Michael Smerconish, the Financial Times is endorsing Obama the marxist, socialist, muslim, terrorist & possible anti-christ. They must not read Drudge or they would know better.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1d0b127c-a380 ... ck_check=1

[Lurker]

Drudge has another scare quote up now. "I'm not interested in the suburbs. The suburbs bore me" The quote is originally from an AP story from 1990 but Drudge found it in a NY Times article from Jan 2007. Obama was talking about where he wanted to focus his energies so I'm not sure whats so scary about the quote.

Here's the entire AP article. I find it amazing that Obama articulated the exact same themes and goals as a 28 year old in 1990 that he is in this election. He's certainly no phony.

The Associated Press

April 16, 1990, Monday, PM cycle

First Black President Of School's Law Review Uninterested In A Cushy Job

BYLINE: By ALLISON J. PUGH, Associated Press Writer

His boyhood friends in Indonesia were street peddlers, and his grandmother still lives in a mud-walled house in Kenya. But Barack Obama is another world away, presiding over the Harvard Law Review as the first black president in the prestigious journal's 103-year history.
The charismatic 28-year-old, ensconced in the halls where tradition reigns, is taking aim at another custom: Obama's sights are set on the South Side of Chicago, not on a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship or a fast-track career with a cushy firm.

"I'm not interested in the suburbs. The suburbs bore me. And I'm not interested in isolating myself," Obama said in a recent interview. "I feel good when I'm engaged in what I think are the core issues of the society, and those core issues to me are what's happening to poor folks in this society."

His passion is rooted in his background. He was born in Hawaii, his father an Oxford- and Harvard-educated economist from the African nation of Kenya, his mother a white anthropologist from Kansas. Obama moved to Southeast Asia at age 2 when his parents divorced and his mother married an Indonesian.
Until the fifth grade, Obama attended Indonesian schools, where most of his friends were the sons of servants, street peddlers and farmers.

Concern for Obama's education led his mother to return him to Hawaii, where he attended public schools through high school. In 1983, he graduated from Columbia University with a degree in political science.

At a recent meeting in a Harvard cafeteria, his affinity with the underdog was readily apparent.

"I lived in a country where I saw extreme poverty at a very early age," Obama said. "Parts of my family in Kenya remain very poor. My grandmother still lives in a mud-walled house with no running water or electricity.

"That's who I am, that's where I come from, not always literally, but at least emotionally."

Obama entered Harvard Law School in 1988, and through a combination of grades and a writing competition, was elected to head the law review this February. He succeeded Peter Yu, a first-generation Chinese-American.

Obama cautions against reading too much into his election.

"It's crucial that people don't see my election as somehow a symbol of progress in the broader sense, that we don't sort of point to a Barack Obama any more than you point to a Bill Cosby or a Michael Jordan and say 'Well, things are hunky dory,"' Obama said.

"There's certainly racism here. There are certain burdens that are placed, more emotionally at this point than concretely," Obama said.

"Professors may treat black students differently, sometimes by being, sort of, more dismissive, sometimes by being more, sort of, careful because they think, you know, they think that somehow we can't cope in the classroom," he said.

Obama sees the inner cities as the front lines of racism.

"It's critical at this stage for people who want to see genuine change to focus locally. And it is crucial that we figure out how to rebuild the core of leadership and institutions in these communities," he said.

For five years before law school, Obama took on that task in Chicago.

As the director of a program that tried to bring South Side churches, unions and block associations together on projects, Obama was not trying to solve local problems, he said. Instead he sought to construct something more lasting - a forum for the community to speak with one voice.

"I'm interested in organizations, not movements, because movements dissipate and organizations don't," Obama said.

America suffered when the movements of the 1960s dissipated, Obama said. Those movements succeeded in raising doubts about harmful traditions of sexism and racism, but failed to offer a viable alternative.

"Hopefully, more and more people will begin to feel their story is somehow part of this larger story of how we're going to reshape America in a way that is less mean-spirited and more generous," Obama said.

"I mean, I really hope to be part of a transformation of this country." And the future of black people and of America generally?

"It depends on how good I do my job," he said.

[Klast Brell]

The way the story is playing out so far the investigator is LOOKING at both campaigns but only Obama campaign members have actually had to withdraw VOTES due to them being cast illegally.

So when will the illegal McCain votes be withdrawn?

[Harlowe]

Hah, I knew Andrew would enjoy Drudge's latest ploy
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/t ... .html#more

Drudge's Latest
Go read the original talk that Obama gave on NPR and see if it says anything even faintly similar to the truncated quotes about to be used by McCain. I mean: come on. Here's the headline:

"2001 Obama: Tragedy That 'Redistribution Of Wealth" Not Pursued By Supreme Court"

Here's what it's based on: the "tragedy," in Obama's telling, is that the civil rights movement was too court-focused. He was making a case against using courts to implement broad social goals - which is, last time I checked, the conservative position. The actual quote in full:

"If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples, so that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be okay."

"But," Obama said, "The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, as least as it's been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted."

Obama said "one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement, was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still stuffer from that."

So Obama was arguing that the Constitution protects negative liberties and that the civil rights movement was too court-focused to make any difference in addressing income inequality, as opposed to formal constitutional rights. So it seems to me that this statement is actually a conservative one about the limits of judicial activism.

Is this really all McCain has left?

After the numerous hoaxes this guy has head-lined, it's a wonder anyone would trust his site at all. He's a joke.

[Harlowe]

Drudge's latest Part II

Law bloggers David Bernstein and Orin Kerr listen to the audio of Obama talking about the Warren Court. Here's Bernstein:

Based on this interview, it seems unlikely that Obama opposes constitutionalizing the redistributive agenda because he's an originalist, or otherwise endorses the Constitution as a "charter of negative liberties," though he explicitly recognizes that this is how the Constitution has been interpreted since the Founding. Rather, he seems to think that focusing on litigation distracts liberal activists from necessary political organizing, and that any radical victories they might manage to win from the courts would be unstable because those decisions wouldn't have public backing.

The way to change judicial decisions, according to Obama, is to change the underlying political and social dynamics; changes in the law primarily follow changes in society, not vice versa. Again, he's channeling Rosenberg and Klarman. And this attitude on Obama's part shouldn't be surprising, given that he decided to go into politics rather than become a full-time University of Chicago constitutional law professor, as he was offered. Had he been committed to the idea that courts are at the forefront of social change, he would have been inclined to take a potentially very influential position at Chicago. (And judging from this interview, he would likely have been a great con law professor, both as a teacher and scholar, and, had he been so inclined, legal activist.)

All that said, there is no doubt from the interview that he supports "redistributive change," a phrase he uses at approximately the 41.20 mark in a context that makes it clear that he is endorsing the redistribution of wealth by the government through the political process.

What I don't understand is why this is surprising, or interesting enough to be headlining Drudge...

[Lurker]

Eight days out and this is the best they can come up with?

[Harlowe]

Voter suppression, no biggie right? It's certainly a much bigger deal that a handful Obama campaign members came forward themselves to pull their votes after learning it was against the rules.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/26/ ... index.html

[Harlowe]

Voter intimidation, another topic you won't see some folks bring up
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=95509946

****** Here is another WTF though, Pentagon panel agrees with Biden, d'oh for McCain
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/p ... panel.html

[Trollbait]

Voter intimidation, another topic you won't see some folks bring up
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=95509946

That right there is disgusting. I hope someone goes to jail. Much as I hope those that steal votes from the mentally challenged go to jail. Much as I hope that those who use government databases to attempt find ammunition to destroy a percieved political opponent go to jail. Much as I hope any who deliberately cast illegal ballots go to jail.