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The Worst President Ever visited Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia home, today to give a speech on patriotism. He was warmly welcomed:

(via RK)

This caption from CNN just doesn’t make any sense:

If you can’t read the caption, it says: “Jeb Obama campaigned in Colorado Thursday.”

Jeb Obama? Seriously? What exactly do these people get paid for, anyway?

A Freedom of Information Act request filed by the ACLU reveals how the Defense Department restricts American journalists’ freedom of the press in order to paint a deceptively positive picture of the War in Iraq:

Through its FOIA project, the ACLU has made public information on Defense Department policies designed to control information about the human costs of war. These practices include:

• Banning photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of U.S. soldiers killed overseas;
• Paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort;
• Inviting U.S. journalists to “embed” with military units but requiring them to submit their stories for pre-publication review;
• Erasing journalists’ footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan; and
• Refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties.

The Pentagon’s domestic propaganda program was only the tip of the iceberg. We’ll be hearing about more atrocities well into the Obama administration.

(via ThinkProgress)

One of John McCain’s big-money fundraisers also funded terrorists:

The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company’s board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University’s National Security Archive as an “illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country’s most notorious civilian massacres.”

Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita’s payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.
…
Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain’s Ohio Victory Team.

While Lindner was CEO of Chiquita, the company began sending money to the AUC through its shipping subsidiary Banadex. A report by the Organization of American States states that Banadex also engaged in arms trafficking, helping to deliver 3,000 Nicaraguan AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to the AUC in 2001. According to federal prosecutors, when company officials realized the arrangement was illegal, they switched to making the payments in cash.

Well, now we know why Charlie Black thinks a terorrist attack would be good news for McCain: it’s a big investment opportunity for John McCain’s campaign financiers.

Connecticuters (Connecticutians?) have had enough of Holy Joe Lieberman (R-CT):

Sen. Joseph Lieberman gets a 45 - 43 percent approval, down from 52 - 35 percent March 27 and his lowest score ever.

“Sen. Lieberman’s approval rating has dropped below 50 percent for the first time in 14 years of polling, with nearly two-thirds of Democrats giving him low marks, probably because he is campaigning for Sen. John McCain,” Dr. Schwartz said.

Hey, let’s look at that last part again:

with nearly two-thirds of Democrats giving him low marks, probably because he is campaigning for Sen. John McCain

Um, ya think?

John McCain is such a maverick, he doesn’t always pay taxes:

When you’re poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you’re rich, it’s hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying. It’s a lesson Cindy McCain learned the hard way when NEWSWEEK raised questions about an overdue property-tax bill on a La Jolla, Calif., property owned by a trust that she oversees. Mrs. McCain is a beer heiress with an estimated $100 million fortune and, along with her husband, she owns at least seven properties, including condos in California and Arizona.

San Diego County officials, it turns out, have been sending out tax notices on the La Jolla property, an oceanfront condo, for four years without receiving a response… Shortly after NEWSWEEK inquired about the matter, the McCain aide e-mailed a receipt dated Friday, June 27, confirming payment by the trust to San Diego County in the amount of $6,744.42. County officials say the trust still owes an additional $1,742 for this year, an amount that is overdue and will go into default July 1.

Kagro X:

And what a Reg’lar Guy thing to do, too. Isn’t it? To forget to pay taxes for four years on your beach condo? Your seventh? Eighth? Ninth property? I keep forgetting.

Why, just the other day I was on my way home from the Applebee’s salad bar, which I had forgotten didn’t exist, and I said to myself, “Oh, I may have forgotten to pay my taxes. For several years in a row. Like, maybe since 2004. Even though my job is to scream at passersby about taxes every day.”

But these things happen to us Reg’lar Guys, don’t they? I mean, who among us hasn’t been tax delinquent for years on end on our beach properties, when you get right down to it? Ha ha!

Southern Baptist scholar Bruce Ware says that spousal abuse only occurs when the wife refuses to submit to her husband’s God-given authority:

Bruce Ware, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said women desire to have their own way instead of submitting to their husbands because of sin.

“And husbands on their parts, because they’re sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged–or, more commonly, to become passive, acquiescent, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and in churches,” Ware said from the pulpit of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas.

Here’s an option for those loyal Republicans who just can’t bring themselves to vote for John McCain:

We know that George Bush was God’s Candidate in 2000. We know that George Bush was God’s candidate again in 2004. And George Bush has been God’s president for the last 8 years.

Trust in God and vote your faith. Keep America safe. Write-in George W. Bush for President in 2008.

But wait, isn’t that unconstitutional? Well, if you haven’t noticed, Republicans don’t give a shit about the Constitution (except for the Second Amendment). Oh, also:

The important thing to understand about so-called “term limits” is that they are man’s law, not God’s Law. The God who parted the Red Sea is surely not worried about so-called “term limits”. When you vote your faith you let Almighty God take care of the details.

Presidential term limits are not in the Bible. And they were not in our Constitution until added by an activist congress in 1951.

Writing in George W. Bush = best plan ever for Republicans. Gavin sez:

Wow, it’s like the satirical opposite of the Clinton bitter-enders. When Clinton went on national TV and specifically asked them to vote for Obama and not for McCain, it only made them dig their heels in harder.

It’s almost as though there’s something fishy going on.

Indeed.

(via S,N!)

I’m testing out new stuff, so if something weird happens–for example, if you start getting weird 404 errors or start getting bounced back to crazydrumguy.com everytime you click on anything–don’t worry. Everything should be back to normal soon.

From the AP via TPM, Barack Obama has donated the legal maximum of $4,600 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in order to help her pay off her debt. I wonder how the PUMAs (otherwise known as traitors to everything Hillary Clinton stands for) will spin this one. Onward to Unity!

Update:

Update: Double Unity!

This just in: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton each contributed $2,300 to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. They made the donation today.

After Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton were finished speaking here, the contributions were announced to reporters by Jamie Smith, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Clinton. The news comes one day after Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, announced that they had each contributed $2,300 to Mrs. Clinton to help retire her campaign debt.