Green Party delegates have selected former Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia as the party’s presidential nominee.
Ruth Weill, the party’s national convention coordinator, said the delegates selected McKinney as they wrapped up their national convention here on Saturday.
McKinney tapped Rosa Clemente, a hip-hop artist, journalist and activist, as her running mate.
The sad thing is, she’s more qualified than Barack Obama.
Think she’ll be invited to any debates?
According to Robert Redford if Obama loses, “you can kiss the Democratic Party goodbye.”
Tony Snow, the former White House press secretary and conservative pundit who bedeviled the press corps and charmed millions as a FOX News television and radio host, died after a long bout with cancer. He was 53.
A syndicated columnist, editor, TV anchor, radio show host and musician, Snow worked in nearly every medium in a career that spanned more than 30 years.
President Bush and Laura Bush issued the following statement:
Laura and I are deeply saddened by the death of our dear friend, Tony Snow. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Jill, and their children, Kendall, Robbie, and Kristi. The Snow family has lost a beloved husband and father. And America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character.
Tony was one of our Nation’s finest writers and commentators. He earned a loyal following with incisive radio and television broadcasts. He was a gifted speechwriter who served in my father’s Administration. And I was thrilled when he agreed to return to the White House to serve as my Press Secretary. It was a joy to watch Tony at the podium each day. He brought wit, grace, and a great love of country to his work. His colleagues will cherish memories of his energetic personality and relentless good humor.
All of us here at the White House will miss Tony, as will the millions of Americans he inspired with his brave struggle against cancer. One of the things that sustained Tony Snow was his faith – and Laura and I join people across our country in praying that this good man has now found comfort in the arms of his Creator.
UPDATE: House Republican Leader John Boehner released the following statement:
“Churchill said, ‘I like a man who grins when he fights’ and that was Tony Snow. For 35 years, as a writer, broadcaster, and spokesman, he fought fiercely for what he believed in, and he did it with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. His loss is a loss for our country. His newspaper columns and television and radio shows illuminated issues with grace and humor and solid insight. He served twice in government, distinguishing himself as a speechwriter in President George H.W. Bush’s White House and as a spokesman for the current President. Despite everything Tony did and achieved in life, he never forgot his hometown roots or those who grew up with him. He was a proud son of Cincinnati, and I will miss him. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife Jill, and their three children.”
Lots of interesting things are going on, so feel free to discuss any of them you’d like.
It’s kind of ironic that at the same time Obama tries to moderate his position on abortion, he gets endorsed by Planned Parenthood, a group as far to the left on abortion as one can get:
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the advocacy and political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), saying his 100 rating by the fund for consistently backing pro-abortion legislation makes him the best choice for president.
“Sen. Obama supports a woman’s right to choose and is a co-sponsor of the Freedom of Choice Act, which would codify and protect a woman’s right to choose,” Anne Brewer, Women for Obama coordinator for the Obama campaign, said in her blog on the Democratic hopeful’s official Web site.
Meanwhile, Obama’s public rightward shift on abortion enrages the left, but doesn’t fool everyone else.
Even though Barack Obama has pledged to not run negative ads, he’s now running a negative ad.. This ad attacks McCain for supporting the Bush-Cheney energy plan… which Obama himself voted for!
This make Obama’s recent ad campaigns 0-3 on accuracy.
Having been raked over the coals for half-truths in his first two ads, Obama tries to avoid too many specifics in his third. But he still runs afoul of those inconvenient truths, hitting McCain for supporting a bill that Obama voted for. For those keeping score, Obama has now touted his support of a bill he didn’t vote for, and denounced a bill he did vote for.
Sad
Nancy Pelosi’s House and Harry Reid’s Senate have hit an historic low approval rating of single digits,
The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.
Last month, 11% of voters gave the legislature good or excellent ratings. Congress has not received higher than a 15% approval rating since the beginning of 2008.
The percentage of Democrats who give Congress positive ratings fell from 17% last month to 13% this month. The number of Democrats who give Congress a poor rating remained unchanged. Among Republicans, 8% give Congress good or excellent ratings, up just a point from last month. Sixty-five percent (65%) of GOP voters say Congress is doing a poor job, down a single point from last month.
Voters not affiliated with either party are the most critical of Congressional performance. Just 3% of those voters give Congress positive ratings, down from 6% last month. Sixty-three percent (63%) believe Congress is doing a poor job, up from 57% last month.
Just 12% of voters think Congress has passed any legislation to improve life in this country over the past six months. That number has ranged from 11% to 13% throughout 2008. The majority of voters (62%) say Congress has not passed any legislation to improve life in America.
These numbers demonstrate the failure of the Democrats to lead Congress. They came into power promising results and a new era of bipartisanship. Instead, they delivered incompetence and increased partisan bickering, and higher gas prices.
While many are quick to predict increased Democrat majorities in both Houses of Congress, it’s clear that the American people are rejecting the so-called leadership of elected Democrats.
The Associated Press reports that the McCain campaign is opening campaign offices in California…
Meanwhile, Ed Cox, the head of McCain’s New York campaign team, says that with Obama as the Democrats’ nominee, McCain has a shot in New York state…
Bob Beckel, taking a page right out of Barack Obama’s strategy book (the chapter on playing the victim card at every turn) whines about angry readers who wrote to him in response to a poorly written post at The Fox Forum about the “arrogance” of George Bush. He opined,
Is it my imagination, or are many of you angry? If I were a Republican and facing the rejection of conservatism on an unprecedented scale this coming November, I suppose I’d be angry as well. Perhaps I can help you understand why your political philosophy is about to be rejected by the American people.
Yeah, we heard the same “you’re going to lose big time in November” line before back in 2004. But, Beckel’s wishful thinking is combined with a lack of understanding of what is really going on. Conservatism is not being rejected. Far from it. The truth is conservatives are frustrated when Republicans they elected stray from conservative principles. If conservatism was being rejected, as Beckel wants to believe, then Barack Obama wouldn’t be trying to win votes shifting his positions towards the center, and taking more conservative positions on the Second Amendment, tax cuts, even abortion.
1. Conservatives are supposed to be fiscally responsible yet when your crowd inherited a trillion-dollar surplus from Bill Clinton, Bush/Cheney and a Republican Congress turned it into a $3-trillion-dollar deficit.
You certainly won’t find fiscal conservatives justifying the increases in spending, but Beckel is absolutely ignoring the impact of the 2000-2001 Recession and 9/11. It is also worth noting that two key economic achievements of the 1990s, welfare reform and the balanced budget, while signed by Bill Clinton, came to be because of the efforts of the Republican Congress.
2. Conservatives strongly support the war in Iraq but won’t help pay for it. Never has our country been at war without asking and getting our citizens to help bear the financial burden…until this war. Conservatives don’t want to give up Bush’s tax cuts for the top 5% of wage earners to help pay for this war. Why?
I guess I must be in the top 5% of wage earners, because how else can I explain the tax cut that I received? But, I’m not in the top 5%, so, enough with that argument. Also, Beckel is either choosing to ignore the record economic growth that resulted from Bush’s tax cuts. And of course, Beckel’s argument loses all credibility when you consider government tax receipts went up as a result of those tax cuts.
3. The American people got tired of being lectured on “family values” by conservative clergy and Republican members of Congress, e.g. Larry Craig, who didn’t practice what they preached.
I’m sure the American people are tired of being lecture about the rich paying “their fair share” of taxes by rich Democrats in Congression who keep large chunks of their personal wealth in off-shore tax shelters to avoid paying taxes on it. I also can’t help mentioning Democrat governor Eliot Spitzer, who built his career on breaking up prostitution rings, only to be involved in one himself. Though, it may be true that conservatives are more likely to punish the hypocrites in their party than liberals are to punish the hypocrites in their party.
4. Or maybe the voters got tired of Republicans controlling the US House of Representatives for 12 years during which they handed out more wasteful pork projects than all the pork handed out by Democrats in the 42 years preceding the GOP takeover.
And what have Democrats done to control spending and cut pork since returning to the majority? Oh yeah, nothing.
5. Or maybe voters got angry when they learned the Vice President of the United States manipulated intelligence and misled the American people on why war with Iraq was in our national security interests.
Despite several investigations by various bipartisan and independent commissions and committees, all concluded that there was no manipulation of intelligence, and that statements made by the administration were supported by the intelligence available at the time.
6. Or maybe the public didn’t like George Bush vetoing legislation to provide health insurance for millions of kids.
Another ridiculous point predicated on the belief that health insurance should be funded by the government regardless of whether federal assistance is necessary. The Democrats’ proposed expansion of SCHIP would have provided taxpayer funded health insurance to children in families who didn’t need such government assistance – but also would have left many who needed it, with no such assistence.
7. Or maybe the public got embarrassed by Republicans in the Bush Administration who refused, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to accept the reality of global warming, aka “The Flat Earth Society”.
No, what’s more embarrassing are Democrats who think global warming is a bigger threat than terrorism, and who are afraid to debate skeptics of global warming.
Beckel then concludes his poorly written list with a self-righteous rant filled with feigned resignation about his alleged experience with conservatives. If the situation were reversed, and a conservative pundit attempted to generalize liberals based on experiences with a select few, Beckel might have written something about how you can’t judge an entire party or ideology, based on an angry, vocal minority.
I expect Beckel to look at things through a partisan lens, but now I think he’s just blind. As a liberal, he certainly finds it in his best interest to talk about elections with an attitude of inevitability of the eventual positive for his party, but doing so really destroy’s his credibility as a political strategist and pundit.
Wow, Obama goes back on his own pledges so much, one can only wonder what his position on an issue will be from day to day.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) promised primary voters a swift withdrawal from Iraq, in clear language still on his Web site: “Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.”
Not anymore. Heading into the holiday weekend, Obama and his advisers repudiated that pledge, saying he is reevaluating his plan and will incorporate advice from commanders on the ground when he visits Iraq later this month.
A top Obama adviser said he is not “wedded” to a specific timeline and Obama said Thursday he plans to “refine” his plan.
This is not going to sit well with the liberal base that delivered the nomination to him…
“Sen. Barack Obama left open the possibility of slowing his promised, 16-month withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq, saying he would consult with military commanders on an upcoming trip to the region to ensure a withdrawal would keep troops safe and Iraq stable.”
“Is Barack Obama softening his Iraq withdrawal time line? … On the campaign website, Obama says he would “immediately” begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and would have “all of our combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months.” But at a news conference, he was asked about concerns by some that he was backing off on that timetable.”
“Democrat Barack Obama is opening the door to altering his Iraq policy. Campaigning in North Dakota, Obama says his upcoming trip to Iraq could alter his plan to bring U.S. troops home within 16 months. The Illinois senator says it all depends on what he hears in consultations with military commanders there.”
“As he arrived for a campaign stop in North Dakota, Mr. Obama told reporters on Thursday that he intended to conduct “a thorough assessment” of his Iraq policy during a forthcoming trip to the country. … It’s been more than two years since Mr. Obama has visited Iraq, which Republicans have used as a point of criticism. After dismissing an invitation from Mr. McCain to visit Iraq together this summer as a “political stunt,” Mr. Obama began making preparations for his own trip to Iraq.”
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