Kudos to McCain!

So John McCain was having an affair! So says the New York Times, which has released a bombshell story on McCain’s intimate relationship with Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist with the firm of Alcalde & Fay, which represents telecommunications clients.

One, I’m impressed. The old guy still has it. If anything, these revelations will help him among libido-challenged senior citizens. He’ll score a few more votes among the Viagra set.

Also, it’s revealing, if only a tad so, of the culture in Washington, DC. Did anyone think that sex is not an arrow in the lobbyists’ quiver? Iseman brings little educational background . She was trained as an elementary education teacher in a minor college. She was originally hired as a secretary. But she was known to fly on campaign flights with McCain, to the point where his staff was concerned that the relationship might be romantic.

Once elected, our senators and congressman likely have a whole array of sexual options that were not available before. Those who succumb to temptation are subject to bribery and intimidation. If the Bushies are wiretapping them, as seems highly likely (why else the frantic rush to cover up past abuses with telecom immunity?), their votes can be had on any issue. That might explain why majority Democrats have been doormats for the Bush agenda.

I’m surprised that the Times, which sat silently on a wiretapping bombshell during the 2004 presidential election, let go with this story. That in itself is a story. There’s no Republican alternative to McCain now, so benefit accrues solely to the Democrats. The mainstream media in general has been kind to Obama and Clinton (while marginalizing Edwards and the other Democratic candidates). Both of them enjoy impressive corporate backing, Clinton from the health care industry and Obama from the financial houses. These two candidates are obviously favored in the game.

That’s not a good thing. There’s great sound and fury in American political campaigns, and little substance. Liberal candidates will say anything to appeal to members of that particular base, and then, like Bill Clinton, ignore them once elected. After all, liberals have nowhere else to go, and never threaten to withhold their votes. They are like puppies. Once a candidate is elected, and financial backers are at the head of the line.

The money behind candidates is an important story that is only rarely covered by mainstream media. The Times is making a between-the-lines statement in reporting what goes on between the sheets.

Anyway, congratulations to John McCain, carrying on at once with a trophy wife and a succubus (the one that we know of, anyway). I salute him, as does AARP.

On Liberal Campuses

I like this piece, Liberal Bias is A-OK, by J.D. Porter, who is a senior at Columbia University.

If conservatives truly feel under-represented in the academy, their only option is to do better work. They shouldn’t allow themselves to be coddled by some sort of regulatory system looking out for their welfare. It’s a mistake, however, to say that we even need more conservative voices at Columbia. We need good scholarship and good pedagogy, and not lip service to an ideology just because it’s popular. That may mean we hire conservatives, or, if history is any indication, it more likely won’t. If we judge professors purely on their work, however, conservativism will have the place in academia that it deserves.

He hoists conservatives by their own petards. Anyway, if the campuses are indeed liberal (that is only a teeny tad true, owing to the fact that most PHD’s are liberals), then conservatives ought to just suck it up and get in there and demand more conservative professors. The market will supply. That the David Horowitz crowd instead relies on intimidation and runs to the legislature seeking repressive legislation speaks volumes.

Say Anything

This was over at Crooks and Liars, so is widely read. But it is so bad that I am putting it up here and adding our three readers to C&L’s.

Here’s Glenn Beck:

“If you’re a guy, you can get past it. I don’t think you can as an ugly woman.”

“You’ve got a double cross, because if you’re an ugly woman, you’re probably a progressive as well.”

Beck later added:

“If you believed in God, you’d know that there’s going to be another chance for you. You don’t have to be ugly in heaven. You’re going to be your perfect self, and there will be another perfect somebody waiting for you on the other side.”

Here is what I don’t get – the guy is obviously a cold and cruel jerk, and a moron to boot. Why does he have a show on CNN?

I think Dave Budge and I touched on it a bit in the post below on how mainstream news networks do such a lousy job. CNN is in a ratings battle with FOX and others. They need numbers. It’s not about IQ. That’s the last thing they care about. They want those right wing butts sitting on those couches. After all, TV is just a way of selling audiences to advertisers.

So they bring on the biggest right wing jackass they can find, one not comported to normal decency, one given to saying outrageous things, even if only to draw viewers.

It’s marketing to our lowest common denominator. It’s why the free market can’t deliver a decent product to the public. Our tastes are determined by the dumbest jackasses among us.

Beck is the lowest of sleazeballs to occupy the front lines of mainstream media – an extremely shallow religious freak.

But my – isn’t he a handsome man?

Hit It!

Well, since we are reduced to flinging videos at at one another, here’s the latest. It’s Hillary’s lame attempt to be part of it all. It wouldn’t be so funny if they weren’t trying to be serious.

On the other side of the coin, I was working yesterday, doing some dull, repetitive stuff, so I went looking for some background noise. What I found was this – a news broadcast from Democracy Now! As I was listening to it, it slowly dawned … I was listening to a real discussion of candidates and their stances. No glitz, no videos, no horse race – just a serious dissection of where Clinton and Obama stand on health care reform.

Democracy Now! is often the object of condescension, as it is a lefty network, but it also does something all of the mainstreams forgot how to do – journalism. I have watched a lot of CNN lately – it’s all horse race. DN! doesn’t fear boring its viewership, I suppose. They are not worried they will bail and head over to FOX. And truthfully, they do run some pretty frightful stuff. Code Pink is often featured.

But they also try hard to give good and hard coverage of current events. And they do other stuff – who else would ask John Edwards’s campaign manager to go on opposite Ralph Nader? Or ask him about Edwards’ conservative voting record or his stint with a hedge fund after his election loss in 2004? Who would cover Noam Chomsky’s latest speech (Mr. PNG -persona non grata)? Or East Timor, about to blow up again? Or labor news, long absent from mainstream and local coverage?

No one else. If I watched nothing but Democracy Now!, I would be better informed than if I watched only CNN, NBC, ABC, FOX, or certainly if I only read the local paper.

Now, back to Hillary’s video. Let’s rock and roll with the C-Woman. (Be sure to take note of the sax player – a Bill-clone? Good grief.)

New Bosses…

…same as the old:

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) has received campaign contributions from each (sub. req.) of the 26 groups for whom he requested earmarks in the recent defense spending bill. An analysis by Roll Call shows that since the beginning of 2005, PACs and employees of those groups have given Murtha $413,250, of which $100,750 came “in the two weeks leading up to March 16, the original deadline for lawmakers to file their earmark requests.” (Roll Call)

In terms of securing earmarks, Hillary Clinton (D-NY) ranks among the top ten in the Senate ($340 million) while Barack Obama (D-IL) ranks in the bottom 25% of the Senate ($91 million). John McCain (R-AZ) has rejected earmarks entirely. Since becoming the majority party, Democrats are responsible for 57% of the $18.3 billion spent on earmarks. (Washington Post)

This is all just in case you guys thought the Democrats were dragging their feet on every issue.  They do know how to get SOME things done. 

Baseball is Back

One of the first signs that winter is going to end is that day in February when pitchers and catchers report. We have a foot of snow outside and the wind has been howling, moving the snow around, making rock-hard drifts. The sun rarely shines – it’s usually overcast here in Bozeman. Winter will linger until April, and we won’t have a true green spring until May.

Except today … the Cincinnati Reds and all the other teams are now in camp. Many players have been there all week – the young guns who want to show up and impress the manager. Get this – some of them come early just because they love to play the game.

The Reds have a young outfielder, Jay Bruce, who is ranked the number one prospect in all of baseball. He’s been in Sarasota all week.

Last year the Reds finished 72-90, fired their manager, and played the last month of the season with basically a triple-A roster. Yet they started out in April of 2007 with the same optimism as now. But losing started early – it takes a couple of months for weaknesses to be exposed, but not that long for the 2007 Reds. They lacked two things – starting pitching and bullpen arms. No amount of hitting overcomes bad pitching. By the All Star break they were deep in the hole, and the manager had to go. Like he was the problem.

This winter they signed a closer, Francisco Cordera, to a monstrous contract, and also nabbed a potential starter in former Colorado Rocky Jeremy Affeldt. They traded away a brilliant young outfielder, Josh Hamilton, for a promising young arm, Edinson Volquez, and hired Dusty Baker to manage. Once again, there is hope. Their record right now is 0-0, and they are tied for first. It is February, I’m slogging through tax work, but pitchers and catchers report today. I’m excited.

We are going to San Francisco in late April, staying in a beach condo and babysitting a friend’s pooch for a while. If that wasn’t enough, I checked the schedule, and sure enough, the Reds are in Frisco at that time. If that wasn’t enough, our friend has a friend who has box seats who won’t be using the tickets … it was is if it were foreordained.

That’s something to look forward to this dark February morning. Talk of steroids and congressional hearings will soon give way to balls and strikes and dingers. Baseball fans are not complicated. We’re not so noisy as football fans – baseball is actually boring to many of them. I can see that. It’s a game without a time clock – a game made for lazy afternoons. Football became popular in an industrialized country where people had to punch clocks. It’s a different mindset.

On this dark and cold February morning I look forward to 162 three hour contests, each one uniquely important. This could be the year.

A Stalking Horse?

What are we to make of a man with a conservative voting record that rivals only that of Hillary Clinton, who ran as a liberal, dropped out at a most inopportune moment, and now supposedly will endorse Hillary Clinton.

Sounds like a stalking horse to me. But my mind is not trained not to think like that.

Primary Wisdom

It’s only the primaries, but something unmistakable is going on. In each contest tonight, forget about Hillary, Barack Obama outpolled the entire Republican field.

And John McCain, the brave man who bombed North Vietnamese civilians, is always shorter than the people around him. Maybe just symbolic of a moral pygmy, maybe significant.

Democratic Sellout in the Works

From Glenn Greenwald:

The Senate today — led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus — will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration’s years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans. The long, hard efforts by AT&T, Verizon and their all-star, bipartisan cast of lobbyists to grease the wheels of the Senate — led by former Bush 41 Attorney General William Barr and former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick — are about to pay huge dividends, as such noble efforts invariably do with our political establishment.

What is interesting about this is the Silence of the Blogs. They’re running Obama-put-to-music clips as the real business of the Democratic Party goes on without notice.

Keep in mind too – this is always true – a vote is not a vote if it doesn’t change anything. A vote in favor of a bill they know will fail or be vetoed means nothing – only the vote to override a veto has substance, and that only if successful. Democrats are great at playing cat and mouse with us. With a few notable exceptions, it’s very hard to know where any of them really stand.

For instance, on the telecom bill, twelve of them are selling out. That’s the required number. But what if they needed thirteen? The thirteenth vote is most assuredly there, hiding in the bushes. It’s Bob Dole’s axiom of politics: You can never go wrong voting for a bill that fails or against one that passes.

UPDATE: Far more than the necessary 12 Democrats bolted and joined the president in granting immunity to the telecoms. Here’s a list of the deserters:

Bayh, Inouye, Johnson, Landrieu, McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Stabenow, Feinstein, Kohl, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, Carper, Mikulski, Conrad, Webb, and Lincoln. Obama voted against immunity, and Hillary Clinton was the only Senator not voting.

As always, Obama’s vote might mean something, might mean nothing. See the Bob Dole axiom above.

The bill can be stopped in the house. Go here to sign a petition urging them to stop it.

Just a Note

For all of those who need it.  I’m not quoting anyone here, or basing this on any sources… I’m just gonna give y’all a really easily recognizable reality:

The United States will NEVER deport the 10-12 million illegal immigrants who reside here.

It just ain’t gonna happen.  Get used to it.  But more importantly, get over it.

That is all.