Will.i.am gives good advice to McCain

I'm watching the final night of the Democratic Convention, and just caught Luke Russert interviewing the performer Will.i.am. Luke asked Will.i.am about McCain's charge that Obama was a celebrity. Here is Will.i.am's advice to McCain:

Don't be jealous just because you can't move the emotion of America.

That just hits the nail right on the head. Good for you, Will.i.am!

No Way, No How, No McCain

That was a hell of a speech Hillary gave last night, wasn’t it? That’s the Hillary I thought we would see on the campaign trail (and that’s the Hillary that would have won). Shed of Mark Penn and all those other ridiculous people she surrounded herself with during the primary, Hillary shined. She made the case for the party, and for progressive politics. And we all know it is a good, strong case. It was nice to hear someone make it so masterfully.

And did you catch the vibe of the convention hall during her speech? Absolutely electric. Resonating with energy. If you haven’t yet heard Hillary’s speech in its entirety, go check it out on the NYTimes website. "No way, no how, no McCain!" It certainly raises the bar for Bill, Joe, Al and Barack.

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And did you also catch Michelle Obama’s speech to open the convention. That was a home run as well. Warm, personable, intelligent, thoughtful. Good stuff too!

To all those people who contend Obama is too foreign, Michelle reminded everyone that Obama has spent more than half his life in Chicago. They are both Chicagoans. And if you’re going to tell me that a Chicagoan is too foreign, to outside the mainstream to be elected president, then I would invite you to pack your bags and move to Russia, where they appreciate that kind of silliness.

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Meanwhile, the republicans are acting more and more the petulant, spoiled little rich brats we know them to be. Rudy Guiliani and Mitt Romney were “dispatched” to the Democratic convention and encharged with running around like drunken frat boys engaged in some particularly pathetic hazing ritual. Let’s be honest, everyone knows that the republicans are the party of the rich, and more particularly, the children of the rich, spoiled, do-nothings who spend their time laughing at how gullible the American people must be to actually vote for them.

If you think you would enjoy having a drink with Mitt Romney, Rudy Guiliani or John McCain, you are fooling yourselves. Not a one of them would give you the time of day, unless they thought they could get something from you. John McCain has never had time for anybody but John McCain. Guiliani is a total jerk, and Romney is just about as creepy as creepy can get.

The republican’s contempt for the common man and woman is written in everything they do, from their tax cuts for corporations and the rich to their bullshit about drilling for more oil (which will benefit no one but the oil companies and the politicians they fund), to their present disruptive antics. No one listens to them. The rest of the world ignores them. And you would too. If someone offers you nothing but demands and threats of violence, you quickly realize it is best to just avoid that person entirely, to pretend they are not there. That’s what Russia and Iran and North Korea and China and Zimbabwe and Sudan and even the present government of Iraq do: ignore the Bush administration entirely. If you think four more years of being ignored is going to make this country safer and more prosperous, then you had better go check your garage, because you likely left your car running and are suffering the early effects of carbon monoxide poisoning.

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Tonight: Bill and Joe. Tomorrow: Al and Barack. You know I’ll be watching!

Vote for McCain = death of Roe v. Wade

Let’s be clear, a vote for McCain is a vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas, and all other supreme court decisions giving the people some measure of protection of privacy.

Whoever the next president is will appoint replacements for the two most liberal justices, Stevens and Ginsberg. Justice Stevens is 88 years old. Justice Ginsberg has been battling colon cancer.

John McCain, if elected, will appoint right wing judges in the mold of Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Scalia. Kennedy, currently the swing justice, is a holdout, as far as the conservative platform goes, on reproductive rights, gay rights, and a host of other issues having to do with personal choice. Any new appointment by McCain will be further to the right on those issues. And, because the Republicans have set a course of appointing very young, unqualified and ideologically driven persons to the bench, it is a guarantee that the Court would stay to the far right for a generation.

So, to those PUMAs (Party Unity My Ass) who rant and rave about HRC not being the nominee, understand that if McCain wins, Roe v. Wade will disappear. There are four votes against it now (Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas). The fifth vote will end that chapter of womens’ ability to chart their own destiny.

And while we’re at it, lets be frank, the person that the HRC supporters should be angry at is HRC herself. It was her election to lose, and she lost it with a serious of awful choices – from her early triangulation and Dick Morris-style positioning to win a general election (which turned off a large portion of the Democratic base); to her refusal to admit that authorizing the war in Iraq was a mistake (and it was obvious even when she cast that vote that it was all about positioning and triangulation); to her vitriolic attacks on Obama; to her inability to choose a theme for her campaign, to her mismanagement of personnel and funds – HRC did not run a good campaign, and she lost because of it. Be angry at her. I am.

Cafferty Skewers McCain as Shallow and Lazy

I've been working on a post that analyzes McCain's failure to provide a coherent, consistent position on any issue. But now I find Jack Cafferty over at CNN has hit the nail on the head. As Cafferty explains, "John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president."

Check it out.