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POPSVanity Fair Cover Satirizes John McCain "We had our own presidential campaign cover in the works, which explored a different facet of the Politics of Fear, but we shelved it when The New Yorker's became the "It Girl" of the blogosphere," Vanity Fair writes. "Now, however, in a selfless act of solidarity with our downstairs neighbors here at the Condé Nast building, we'd like to share it with you. Confidentially, of course."
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POPSMedia "Obamathon" Couric Showcases Obama Over McCain The Media Is In Love With Barack It's pretty obvious that the media has a bizarre fascination with Barack Obama. Some may even say it's a love affair. Watch the video 2:56 http://www.johnmccain.com/ It has been an Obamathon ever since the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee touched down in Afghanistan. At today's press conference in Amman, a throng of reporters recorded his every move. In total, 200 journalists requested seats on “Air Obama” -- 40 of them were accepted. The bill for the trip? About $20,000 each.
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POPSAfghanistan: Obama Sees Problems; McCain Sees A solution The differences are not small ones, and reflect a distinction between the kind of staff-driven, laundry-list mush that sees the immensity of a problem and a leader-driven set of priorities that sees a solution. It is the distinction between Obama's opposition to the Iraq surge and McCain's support for it: not just the courage to make the tough choice, but the clarity to follow the right course. It's also the distinction between winning the war and simply ending it. Thomas Donnelly is the Resident Fellow in Foreign & Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
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POPSMaliki's Bet Mr. Obama, he is also placing one on Mr. McCain, which is that in the event the Republican is elected, he will place principle and the national interest over politics and petty vindictiveness. For our part we see the emergence of an Iraq making its own choices in these matters rather than having them dictated by the American ambassador or American generals as yet another sign of victory in the Battle of Iraq. The Iraqis want America as their friends whether Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain is president. For all the talk by critics of how the Iraq War supposedly alienated America from the world, here is an administration in Baghdad maneuvering for a friend in the White House.
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POPSSupport Of Obama Shaped By Ahmad Chalabi Advice
security decisions of Iraq's army to forward a Shiite confessional agenda. The role of Mr. Chalabi, whose party failed to gain any seats in the 2005 federal parliamentary elections, should be of interest to close watchers of the Bush administration. While Mr. Chalabi has clashed with both the American embassy and at times with Mr. Maliki, he nonetheless is still regarded among the Shiite political class as knowledgeable of American politics from his days lobbying for the Iraq Liberation Act in Washington. At the time, in the late 1990s, Senator McCain was one of Mr. Chalabi's biggest supporters. Mr. Brooke yesterday pointed out that Mr. Chalabi was appointed in 2007 by Mr. Maliki to chair a special committee aimed at restoring basic services to the citizens of Baghdad. "Maliki was number two in the Debaathification commission from the beginning when it was started in 2003. He has been in constant contact with Dr. Chalabi since that time," Mr. Brooke said.
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POPSBarack Obama Will Do The Unthinkable In London This Week With the world as his stage, Obama, 46, hopes to persuade Americans that he is ready to become commander-in-chief. His minders are determined there will be no pictures of him in a flak-jacket or tank looking wimpish — the cause of Michael Dukakis’s downfall in the 1988 White House race. A poll in The Washington Post last week showed that 72% of Americans thought McCain, a Vietnam war hero, would make a good commander-in-chief; only 48% felt the same way about Obama. Yet the global coming of the Obamessiah is manna for critics who claim the Illinois senator has embarked on a humourless cult of personality. Exhibit A last week was his po-faced reaction to a satirical cartoon on the cover of The New Yorker showing Obama as a turban-wearing Muslim and his wife Michelle with a black-power Afro, wearing military fatigues. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4363044.ece
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POPSPolitical Theater al-Maliki Style As the security situation has improved, Iraqis increasingly are calling for the drawdown of American troops, and it probably will be a top issue in the provincial elections. Maliki has tried to balance voters’ preference for the departure of foreign forces with the Bush administration’s opposition to a timeline. In an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine this week, Maliki seemed to endorse Obama’s troop-withdrawal proposal, drawing the ire of the White House. The prime minister's office later backed away from the interview. But Monday’s statement by Maliki’s spokesman suggested that he's speaking with an audience different from the White House in mind: Iraqi voters.
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POPSDinosaur Media March Deeper Into The Tar Pit Barry O is on his preemptive victory lap around the world and he steadfastly refuses to take questions from the foreign press. I wonder why? it's not like he isn't great reading off a prompter ?off the cuff?answering tough questions right? What would our media say if it was the Maverick dodging tough questions? I kinda doubt they would let it slide, but the Obama slinks along unmolested by any serious scrutiny from our self-selected watchdogs of the Fourth Estate. It is refreshing as a member of the newest type of new media to know that every day the solons of the liberal e-light who make up the dinosaur media march ever deeper into the tar pit.
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POPSAnti-Obama Movie On The Way: Citizens United One prominent Citizens United movie is “Celsius 41.11,” which says it tells the “truth behind the lies” of the Michael Moore movie “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Other Citizens United movies are critical of the United Nations, illegal immigration, and the American Civil Liberties Union, while one movie promotes Newt Gingrich and his ideas. The conservative group is also looking to the U.S. Supreme Court for help in advertising the anti-Hillary movie. It is opposing a federal regulation, under the McCain-Feingold Act, requiring that a disclaimer that identifies the group be placed at the end of television ads promoting the movie and criticizing Mrs. Clinton. It is also arguing that it should not have to disclose how much it spent to produce the movie and the ads, nor who contributed to it. The Supreme Court is scheduled to decide next week whether it will hear the case.
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POPSThe Group Of Eights' Empty Rhetoric With rising gas costs, Americans in a variety of polls have shown by a majority they now want to explore offshore drilling, so this move will be popular among that majority and John McCain has been pushing for it as well. Reported on June 26, 2008, the InsiderAdvantage/Poll, asks "Do you favor or oppose increased exploration and production of oil and natural gas off the coasts of Florida?” Favor (61%) Oppose (32%) No opinion (7%) Rasmussen- June 17, 2008: "67% Support Offshore Drilling, 64% Expect it Will Lower Prices." Zogby- June 26, 2008: "74 percent support offshore oil drilling in U.S."
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POPSMcCain Hits Obama On Iraq, Outlines Afghanistan Plan some of whose members have national restrictions on where their troops can go and what they can do. This is no way to run a war.” The Arizona senator touted the Afghan army as a “great success story” and said it needs to be expanded. He added that the global community should share the cost of doubling the size of the Afghan army. “We must convince Pakistanis that this is their war as much as it is ours. And we must empower the new civilian government of Pakistan to defeat radicalism with greater support for development, health and education,” McCain said. “Sen. Obama has spoken in public about taking unilateral military action in Pakistan. In trying to sound tough, he has made it harder for the people whose support we most need to provide it,” he added. “I will not bluster, and I will not make idle threats. But understand this: When I am commander in chief, there will be nowhere the terrorists can run, and nowhere they can hide.”
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POPSBravo For Bush And Bravo For The Traders Well, if Congress moves to seal the deal, oil prices will probably keep on falling. That’s the way traders work. They discount the future. Psychology and expectations can turn on a dime. The congressional ban on offshore drilling expires September 30, so that becomes a key date. A new report from Wall Street research house Sanford C. Bernstein says that California actually could start producing new oil within one year if the moratorium were lifted. The California oil is under shallow water and already has been explored. Drilling platforms have been in place since before the moratorium. They’re talking about 10 billion barrels worth off the coast of California. There’s also a “gang of 10” in the Senate, five Republicans and five Democrats, that is trying to work a compromise deal on lifting the moratorium. So it’s possible a lot of action on this front could occur much sooner than people seem to think. Deregulate, decontrol, and unleash the American energy industry.
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POPSObama's Berlin Speech At Brandenburg Gate Controversy Obama, a first term Illinois senator, is planning a trip to Europe and the Mideast this summer to bolster his foreign policy credentials -- one of the strong points of his Republican opponent, John McCain, in the November election. The German government has denied that Washington put pressure on Merkel to block the proposed Obama speech. German newspapers reported Bush administration officials had signaled their reservations about Obama speaking at the landmark. A focal point of Cold War tensions, West Berlin was kept free during a Soviet blockade six decades ago by a U.S.-led Air Lift. Since then, American leaders from John Kennedy to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have delivered major speeches in Berlin.
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POPSObama's Flip-Flopping Caused By Evil Twin (alter-ego) In light of the recent changes in the current truth, it is important to understand which contradictory "flip-flopping" statement belongs to which twin. The officially registered "flip-flops" already include Public Financing, Guns, Iraq, FISA, Special Interests, NAFTA, the Cuba Embargo, Illegal Immigration, and Abortion. The list grows almost daily. Just a few examples: * Top Obama Flip-Flops * Collection of Obama Flip-Flops * Obama & McCain (cannot confirm a McCain evil twin) Flip-Flops The discovery of an evil twin comes as a huge relief to most Americans who otherwise might conclude that Obama is not a new transcendent-type messiah, but a usual Chicago-type lying politician. Luckily, nobody will have to contemplate the depth of Obama's perceived depravity anymore, because the existence of the evil twin changes everything.
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POPSABC Poll: A Careful Balance Between Left And Far-Left 3 for Obama and 2 for Clinton... No mention of the 54 for McCain. Maybe it wasn't bias --- maybe they just randomly picked five out of the 60 who didn't favor McCain. Never mind the odds of that happening are roughly 1 in 100,000. It was just luck of the draw! Luck of the draw, I tell you!
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POPSAnother Environmental "Solution" Starts To Fall Apart Signaling a major retrenchment, European Union legislators on Monday proposed ratcheting back an ambitious target to raise Europe's use of biofuels. "I think when we will look back we will say this was the beginning of a turning point for Europe on biofuels," said Juan Delgado, a research fellow specializing in energy and climate change expert at Breugel, a research organization in Brussels. "It will be very difficult now for Europe to stick by its targets." http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/07/business/fuel.php Another Environmental "Solution" Starts To Fall Apart: EU Infatuation With Ethanol Grows Cold, Canada, Too http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/07/08/another-environmental-solution-starts-to-fall-apart-eu-infatuation-with-ethanol-grows-cold-canada-too/#more-5814
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POPSHope + Change = 70% Tax Rate Still, Barack assures us that John McCain's and George Bush's policy stances are indistinguishable, so let's so stipulate. Is that worse than the alternative? After all, what President in the modern era does Senator Obama's agenda most resemble? Huge expansion of the federal government? Check. Letting entitlement spending run wild? Check. "Windfall profit" taxes on oil companies? Strong desire to meet with dictators and state terrorism sponsors? Big doofy grin? Check, check, and check. The Tax Man Cometh Obama’s Plan Since the early 1980s — after Americans rejected Jimmy Carter and embraced Ronald Reagan and his tax cuts — the United States has benefited from relatively competitive tax rates. But if Sen. Barack Obama’s tax plan becomes law, the IRS will become one of the most punitive tax men in the world. http://blog.heritage.org/2008/07/01/morning-bell-the-tax-man-cometh/ (Obama caricature by Cox & Forkum)
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POPSConservatives At Odds With McCain But perhaps more importantly, he has long been an advocate of entitlement reform. He was early an ardent support of personal accounts for Social Security, and has pushed for serious Medicare reform, including means-testing. Almost alone among Republicans, he opposed the disastrous Medicare prescription drug benefit. "On domestic policy, he has shown a disturbing predilection for elevating every personal pet peeve, from steroids in baseball to airplane service quality, to a federal issue. And, he has embraced heavily regulatory environmental policies and compulsory national service. Like George W. Bush, he tends to support federal power over federalism, executive authority over legislative, and generally leans toward the imperial presidency. For believers in individual liberty and limited government, it's a decidedly mixed bag. But, then again, aren't they all?"
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POPSVeterans Hit The Battlegrounds We need to finish the job. . . . No matter who is president." Hegseth says his group is not operating on behalf of McCain and notes that federal law prohibits the organization from coordinating the ad with his campaign. The states were chosen, he said, not because they are crucial swing states for McCain, but rather because the heightened interest in those states will give it a larger audience. "We're going to tap into that heightened awareness," he said, noting that his organization has supported several Democratic candidates in the past year or so. "It's not an attack on anybody. We're not taking on any presidential candidates." He said McCain has been the "strongest advocate" for the veterans of the two wars. "We would hope that success in Iraq could benefit everybody," he said.
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POPSNew And Not Improved! New York Times the death penalty and gun control. Mr. Obama endorsed the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. We knew he ascribed to the anti-gun-control groups’ misreading of the Constitution as implying an individual right to bear arms. But it was distressing to see him declare that the court provided a guide to “reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe.” We were equally distressed by Mr. Obama’s criticism of the Supreme Court’s barring the death penalty for crimes that do not involve murder. Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics. We don’t want any “redefining” on these big questions. This country needs change it can believe in.
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POPSMcCain: Pump This! Meanwhile, the centrists McCain spent years impressing with his outraged denunciations of conservatives, Swift Boat Veterans and Christians will be voting for Obama. They think he's cute. The irony is, the only people McCain can count on to vote for him are the very Republicans he despises -- at least those of us who can get drunk enough on Election Day to pull the lever for him. In fact, we should organize parties around the country where Republicans can get drunk so they can vote for McCain. We can pass out clothespins with his name as a reminder and slogan-festooned vomit bags. The East Coast parties can post the number of drinks necessary for the task to help the West Coast parties. For more information, go to getdrunkandvote4mccain.com. This year, moderate Republicans have hit the jackpot. John McCain is the Platonic ideal of a "moderate Republican."
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POPSFARC Hostage Ingrid Betancourt Freed But in becoming so famous, the 46-year-old Ms. Betancourt also became more valuable to the FARC, which was feeling the heat from the government under U.S.-ally President Álvaro Uribe (who, it so happened, hosted Sen. John McCain on Tuesday). FARC funds itself largely through drug trafficking and kidnapping, but despite such activities had found a friend in Hugo Chávez. The Venezuelan president and FARC had sought to use the selective release of hostages to get governments allied with him, such as Ecuador and Nicaragua, to grant the group diplomatic recognition -- a move that, if followed by other countries in the region, would undermine the Colombian government's offensive against the FARC and by extension U.S. influence in the region. Mr. Chavez had declared his motives to be purely humanitarian; but, in any event, it is the Colombian military that has now done the selective releasing.
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POPSMcCain vs. Obama On National Security that espouses the destruction of the State of Israel as its fondest wish and pledges undying enmity to the United States to possess the weapons to advance their malevolent ambitions." He also rejects "unconditional dialogues" with Iran. Obama has delivered messages on Iran that were more mixed. But that only makes diplomacy more important. If we must use military force, we are more likely to succeed, and will have far greater support at home and abroad, if we have exhausted our diplomatic efforts." In the same speech, however, Obama promised: "aggressive, principled diplomacy without self-defeating preconditions....Obama missed a vote on a controversial amendment offered by Sen. Jon Kyl and Lieberman that proposed labeling Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization . Obama called the amendment a repeat of the mistakes that led to war in Iraq; however, he had cosponsored an earlier bill declaring the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization
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POPSFlooding Spurs Ethanol Backlash But others remain strongly in support of biofuels. "Abandoning our commitment to ethanol and biofuels, as some would suggest we do, would do nothing to provide meaningful relief from high grain prices today or in the future," said Bob Dineen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association. "It would absolutely force the price of gas through the roof and require the import of more record-high foreign oil."
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POPSObama's "Equal Pay" For Women [Not So Much] The average pay for the 33 men on Obama's staff (who earned more than $23,000, the lowest annual salary paid for non-intern employees) was $59,207. The average pay for the 31 women on Obama's staff who earned more than $23,000 per year was $48,729.91. (The average pay for all 36 male employees on Obama's staff was $55,962; and the average pay for all 31 female employees was $48,729. The report indicated that Obama had only one paid intern during the period, who was a male.)
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POPSDr. Seuss: The Amazing Obama Flip Flop Machine McCain’s still trying to get some traction. But when he points to my lies, I just call it a “distraction.” I laugh and I smile and charm the voters relentless. And in November, I hope they’re defenseless. If I con enough voters before they catch on, I’ll have a big party on the White House lawn.
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POPSIt's All About Obama Americans overwhelmingly find it a hopeful, optimistic sign that the country could elect an African-American president. But they rightly want to know what kind of leader he might be. They may well reject as cynical any maneuver to discourage close examination of him by suggesting any criticism is racially motivated. The candidate's self-centeredness has been on display before. Having effectively sewed up the Democratic nomination, he could have agreed to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations (states Hillary Clinton had carried). While reducing his lead by 50 to 55 delegates, it would not have altered the outcome. But Mr. Obama supported cutting these battleground-state delegations in half. At a time when magnanimity was called for, the candidate decided he'd strut. In a contest over who is willing to put principle above personal ambition and self-interest, John McCain, a war hero and a former POW, wins hands down.
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POPSYou Can't Fool All of the People All of the Time Instead of Drill! Drill! Drill!, their motto could be: Kill! Kill! Kill! In response to skyrocketing gas prices, liberals say, practically in unison, "We can't drill our way out of this crisis." What does it mean? Finding more oil isn't going to increase the supply of oil? It is the typical Democratic strategy to babble meaningless slogans, as if they have a plan. Their plan is: the permanent twilight of the human race. Liberals complain that -- as Obama put it -- there's "no way that allowing offshore drilling would lower gas prices right now. At best you are looking at five years or more down the road."This is as opposed to airplanes that run on woodchips, which should be up and running any moment now. Clinton proposed a 26-cent tax on gas. John Kerry said it should be 50 cents. Gore endorsed the Malthusian proposal of Paul and Anne Ehrlich in "The Population Explosion" hat taxes gas gradually
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POPS A Trifecta Of Gaffes Has Obama Taking Heat By laughing not with, but at, Obama the mainstream media again demonstrated the type of emotional distance one might almost mistake for journalistic independence. (Conservative pundits have been mocking Obama’s elite iconography for some time.) For patriotic Americans holding traditional value this was a bit of civic blasphemy.The presumptuousness was only outdone by the lack of reverence for existing symbols of the U.S. Obama played the race card - loudly and blatantly. He suggested, with no evidence whatsoever, that Republicans were pointing to his race as a reason to question his fitness for the presidency. That tactic seemed further evidence that his effort to minimize race are over and he now intends to use race as a sword to attack his Republican opponent. It however is a potentially dangerous strategy, certain to turn off some segment of white voters who do not want to be bludgeoned by racial politics. Here Obama has done what weeks of McCain ads and speeches could not
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POPSA Clear Majority Of Americans Want To Drill Here Al Gore, philanthropist, Climate activist, and winner of the Nobel Peace prize, is the single greatest advocate in the war against humanity. Millions of innocent lives, people whose only crime is being poor. We need to protect not only others wellbeing, but our own freedoms, our own rights. We need to defend ourselves from Eco-Terrorist ideas, perpetuated by cheap theatrics and scaremongering. We need to defend ourselves against Eco Evangelist Al Gore. Energy Independence: President Bush asks Congress to lift the 1981 drilling ban on offshore oil. The no-drill Democrats will call it flip-flopping. We call it change you can believe in. The Democratic response to Republican determination to end our dependence on foreign oil has been to call for more taxes on oil companies and to pressure, even sue, OPEC. A group of 10 Democratic senators on Tuesday called for Bush to file a complaint against OPEC. http://www.smartgreenusa.com/
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POPSIs McCain Coming Around On ANWR? It will take years for the technologies to mature, the costs to come down and the national fleet to be changed over from its petroleum base. In the interim, we will need crude oil and plenty of it. Since the stability of our present sources of oil cannot be relied upon, our nation's security has been put at considerable risk. McCain realizes that the U.S. no longer has any choice but to develop its own dependable domestic energy supply and infrastructure. He's also politically astute enough to understand this: McCain's position is likely to help him solidify support among conservatives, which political analysts say he needs to do to guarantee a strong GOP turnout in November. His position also puts him in line with Republicans in the House and Senate, who are pushing legislation in Congress to lift the ban.
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POPSWebb Splits With Obama Over Drilling Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D) of Illinois and Sen. Charles Schumer (D) of New York dismissed any concerns about Webb’s stance, saying they did not notice his proposal Wednesday. Durbin, however, pointedly rejected Webb’s argument that states should have the right to make drilling decisions. The legislation “offers a preliminary step toward exploration and development of one of our domestic energy sources,” Webb said. “In order to address our nation’s energy crisis, all options need to be on the table.” One of Virginia’s most prominent environmental groups also opposes Webb’s idea, saying there is no plausible environmental distinction between gas and oil drilling and that any environmental damage would spread far beyond Virginia’s coast. “This puts the camel’s nose under the tent,” said Glen Besa, director of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club.
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POPS WaPo Throws Barry Under The Bus This is the kitchen table issue this year, and if Obama has the Post backing the other guy’s proposals, he may be starting to circle the drain already.
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POPSDivvying The Spoil$ HILL AND BARACK READY TO HAGGLE Only $10 million can be spent in the fall after the party conventions, leaving Obama with $33 million to carry him through the summer months. McCain, who will accept public financing, will have $84 million to spend in the general election.
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POPS A Large And Telling Obama Flip-Flop The campaign-finance laws have always been a monument to hypocrisy. Don't, however, expect the system's supporters in the nation's editorial pages or good-government groups to admit that Barack Obama has killed it. More likely they will express "disappointment" with his decision and suggest that he "fix" it – after he's President, most likely with more rules that will help incumbents and the well known or rich. The odds of Mr. McCain's friends from the McCain-Feingold crusade stepping forward to defend him against this Obama gambit are close to zero.
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POPSMcCain Calls For End To Corn Subsidies For Ethanol In comments published by the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, McCain also said he would support Brazil's addition to the Group of Eight industrialized nations and lauded the nation's drive to find clean energy sources. White House economic advisers say corn-based ethanol is responsible for just 2 to 3 percent of the overall increase in food prices, which are up more than 40 percent this year over 2007.
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POPSMcCain Team Strikes Back John McCain advisors James Woolsey, Kori Schake, John Lehman, and Randy Scheunemann held a conference call regarding Barack Obama’s comments, praising the 1993 world trade center bombing trial as a model for fighting terrorists. Bottom line: The McCain camp clearly sees this as an opening to argue that Obama is out of touch and dangerously naive about how to deal with terrorists. And if Obama really intends to make the 1993 trial the model for handling terror detainees he should be prepared for some tough questioning about the consequences of that option. The attackers only look incompetent when the attacks fail to do what the plotters had intended. It is not a good strategy to hope that attacks will fail. It is a dangerous tendency to minimize the potential of failed attacks and to write off the plotters as bumblers. http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/06/more_obama_confusion_on_terror.asp
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