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Blogs Eric Reads
Archive for May, 2008
McCain Calls Mosul “Quiet” As Suicde Bomb Kills 16
John McCain continues to demonstrate that his foreign policy “experience” really isn’t worth much:
Speaking about Iraq at a townhall event on Thursday evening in Greensdale, Wisconsin, Sen. John McCain declared, “I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it’s succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough and there will be setbacks…”
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed 14 police recruits and two policemen in northern Iraq on Thursday, police and military sources said.
Clearly John McCain’s expertise on Iraq isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
Searching for John McCain WordPress Plugin
As I mentioned previously, I am participating in the Searching for John McCain project, which is intended to show the truth about John McCain by using his own words and statements against him. The idea, as Chris Bowers explains, is to consistently link “John McCain” to one of nine news articles revealing his position on everything from minimum wage increases (opposed) to reproductive choice (opposed) to ending the Iraq War (strongly opposes).
I found that adding a new link each time I wrote John McCain was quickly becoming tedious, so I created this WordPress plugin which will automatically add a link to one of the nine news articles whenever you mention John McCain in your blog posts. You can see it working right here on this blog post: John McCain.
Download the Searching for JM WordPress Plugin here.
(The current version is 1.0)
To install this plugin, simply upload johnmccain.php to the wp-content/plugins directory, and then activiate the “Searching for John McCain” plugin in your WordPress admin panel. The plugin will automatically add a link to one of the nine news articles whenever you mention John McCain in your blog posts. You do not need to add links or <a> tags when you write your blog posts!
If you have any questions, please refer to the FAQ in the enclosed readme file, email me, or leave a comment on this post.
If you are so inclined, donations to pay my hosting bills are always appreciated.
Searching for John McCain
Open Left’s Chris Bowers has a plan to spread the truth about John McCain across the internet by using McCain’s own words against him. I’ll let Chris explain:
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the number one way that voters use the Internet for political action is to search for information on candidates. In 2004, 34 million Americans used the Internet for this purpose. In 2008, that number will increase significantly, possibly to 50 million or more, with tens of millions looking for information on John McCain. As these voters are looking for information on John McCain, our actions will direct them toward nine articles in particular. Voters are looking for information on John McCain, and we are giving it to them.
These nine articles were not chosen lightly. Analyzing and interpreting polling has long been one of the specialties as a blogger, and I have spent the last three months culling through mountains of available polling on John McCain in order to find the top attacks. All nine of these articles directly correspond to messaging on John McCain that, according to my research, effectively raises doubts about McCain among more than 60% of swing voters.
Additionally, six of these nine articles are from news organizations that already boast top twenty-five Google search rankings for either “John McCain” or “McCain.” As such, in order for those six articles to appear in the top twenty Google searches on either John McCain or McCain, we only have to optimize each of those articles relative to other articles from that news organization. That is a very simple, low-hanging fruit sort of task that can be accomplished in only a matter of days.
Further, this messaging is presented by either John McCain himself, or by a non-partisan news organization (or, in most cases, both). As such, the messaging will not be, or be seen as, a partisan attack, making it all the more effective. Personally, I also like that when the inevitable media and conservative outcry against this action kicks in, we can just say that these are all McCain’s own words, and all articles produced by national news organizations. Considering that Michelle Malkin claimed Google should sue me over the Googlebomb campaign two years ago, that her readers issued dozens of death threats against me, and that every single TV news organization contacted me about the campaign two years ago, I really like this aspect of the campaign.
Finally, all of these articles have “McCain” in the title of the article, and most have “McCain” in the URL for the article, making them easier to optimize on Google.
So I’m going to start doing my part to get the word out about John McCain. If you have a webpage or blog and would like to do the same, Chris has the list of websites to link.
Third Bush Term: McCain Voted With Bush Every Time
The McCain campaign wants to hide the fact that President McCain would just be a third term for George W. Bush. Fortunately for us, McCain’s Senate record speaks for itself:
CQ’s Presidential Support studies try to determine how often a legislator votes in line with the President’s position:
CQ tries to determine what the president personally, as distinct from other administration officials, does and does not want in the way of legislative action. This is done by analyzing his messages to Congress, news conference remarks and other public statements and documents.
So, these studies only track votes when the President has an explicit, stated opinion on a bill.
According to CQ, Senator John McCain has voted with President Bush 100% of the time in 2008 and 95% of the time in 2007:
John McCain has voted with George W. Bush every single time. That doesn’t even count votes where McCain didn’t bother to show up for (for example, Jim Webb’s GI Bill, which passed the Senate overwhelmingly but Bush has threatened to veto), and considering that McCain has missed the most votes of any Senator this year, that’s saying a lot.
FEMA Trailers Making Kids Sick
We already know how incompetent the Bush Administration’s response to Katrina was, but this is just shameful:
Doctors cannot conclusively link her asthma to the trailer. But they fear she is among tens of thousands of youngsters who may face lifelong health problems because the temporary housing supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency contained formaldehyde fumes up to five times the safe level.
The chemical, used in interior glue, was detected in many of the 143,000 trailers sent to the Gulf Coast in 2006. But a push to get residents out of them, spearheaded by FEMA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did not begin until this past February.
Members of Congress and CDC insiders say the agencies’ delay in recognizing the danger is being compounded by studies that will be virtually useless and the lack of a plan to treat children as they grow.
…
Formaldehyde is classified as a probable carcinogen, or cancer-causing substance, by the Environmental Protection Agency. There is no way to measure formaldelhyde in the bloodstream. Respiratory problems are an early sign of exposure.Young children are at particular risk. Thousands who lived in trailers will be in the prime of life in the 10 to 15 years doctors believe it takes cancer to develop.
Ugh. It took these criminals two whole years after discovering that these trailers contained a toxic chemical to get their act together, and now these children will have to suffer throughout their lives for FEMA’s incompetence. Thanks, assholes.
Brad has a suggestion for Bush’s last day in office.
Incidentally, I’m looking to organize a Million Middle Finger March in Washington, DC next year. The premise is simple: we get a million people to gather in our nation’s capital to flip Bush the bird as he takes off in his helicopter after the new president is sworn in.
Who’s with me?
I’m in.
McConnell Down in Kentucky
Looks like bad news for Senator McConnell:
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the Kentucky Senate race shows Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford with a five percentage point lead over long-time Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. The poll, conducted just two days after Lunsford won the Democratic nomination, shows the challenger with 49% of the vote while McConnell earns 44%.
…
While McConnell will try to make Obama a part of Lunsford’s name, Lunsford will emphasize McConnell’s ties to the current President. George W. Bush won 60% of the vote in Kentucky during Election 2004 but just 32% of the state’s voters now say the President is doing a good or an excellent job. Forty-eight percent (48%) say Bush is doing a poor job.
But wait, there’s more:
McConnell is far from the only Republican Senator in trouble this fall. In addition to Kentucky, at least nine other Republican Senate seats are potentially in play including seats in Alaska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Virginia, and Texas. Not all of those races will be won by Democrats, but the fact that so many Republican seats are vulnerable virtually assures that the Democratic Senate majority will grow. The underlying reason that so many Republican seats are at risk is that fewer and fewer Americans consider themselves to be Republicans.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer group of people.
Is Barack Obama a Muslim?
A new website asks if Barack Obama is a Muslim.
Simple answers to simple questions.
You Stay Classy, Barack Obama
Following Senator Clinton’s idiotic comment on Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, Barack Obama responded with this:
“I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make and I think that is what happened here. Senator Clinton says that she did not intend any offense by it and I will take her at her word on that,” Obama told Radio Isla Puerto Rico.
While the Clinton campaign has been quick to jump on every comment that Obama has ever made in order to smear him, Barack Obama wants to move on to more important things. Classy.
Allergic to Wi-Fi
This does not make any sense.
A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they’re allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings.
Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones.
“I get chest pain and it doesn’t go away right away,” he said.
Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
It sounds like some people are afraid of big, bad internets but aren’t really sure how it works. The wi-fi signal is just a freaking radio wave. Should we also ban the use of cell phones in public buildings? Is public funding for radio and TV discriminatory? Seriously.
Arthur Firstenberg should take some Pepto-Bismol for the chest pain that just won’t go away. Maybe then Santa Fe can enter the 21st century.
BREAKING and UPDATED: Rove Subpoenaed
The AP reports that the House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Karl Rove.
The subpoena issued Thursday orders Rove to testify before the House panel on July 10. He is expected to face questions about the White House’s role in firing nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers had negotiated with Rove’s attorneys for more than a year over whether the former top aide to President Bush would testify voluntarily.
“It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests,” Conyers, D-Mich., said in a statement. “Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate.”
“Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters,” Conyers said.
Seeing as how we haven’t heard any testimony from Harriet Miers, I doubt we’ll ever see Karl Rove perjuring himself testifying before Congress.
Update: The Raw Story has a copy of Conyers’ letter to Rove’s attorney, which came with the subpoena. Some interesting snippets (italics mine):
Your letter is incorrect in suggesting that the enclosed subpoena will raise the same issues as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subpoena to Mr. Rove and the pending lawsuit concerning our Committee’s subpoena to Harriet Miers. Both these matters focus on the firing of U.S. Attorneys in 2006 and efforts to mislead Congress and the public on that subject. Here, as we have made clear from the outset, the Siegelman case is a principal focus of our request for Mr. Rove to testify. In addition, unlike Harriet Miers, Mr. Rove has made a number of on-the-record comments to the media about the Siegelman case and the U.S. Attorney firings, extending far beyond “general denials of wrongdoing.” There is no question that both the prior subpoenas to Mr. Rove and Ms. Miers should have been complied with. But it is even more clear that Mr. Rove should testify as we have now directed.