First Door on the Left

Have you ever seen anybody concentrate quite so hard on something quite so simple?

Story here.

P.S. I really hope that was not the infamous “terrorist fist jab.”

(h/t: For Your Entertainment)

If there was ever any doubt in anybody’s mind that Johnny McCain is running for George W. Bush’s third term, it should be gone now…

McCain Orders Shake-Up of His Campaign

Steve Schmidt

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign has gone through its second shake-up in a year as Mr. McCain, responding to Republican concerns that his candidacy was faltering, put Steve Schmidt in charge of day-to-day operations and abandoned an effort to have the campaign run by 11 regional managers, the senator’s aides said Wednesday.

Mr. Schmidt is a veteran of President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign and he worked closely with Karl Rove, who was Mr. Bush’s political adviser. His installation at Mr. McCain’s headquarters sharply diminished the responsibilities of Rick Davis, who has been Mr. McCain’s campaign manager since the last shake-up nearly a year ago.

Mr. McCain’s advisers said that Mr. Davis would continue to hold the position of campaign manager, but that Mr. Schmidt had taken over every major operation where Mr. McCain has shown signs of struggling: communications, scheduling and basic political strategy.

The shift was approved by Mr. McCain after several aides, including Mr. Schmidt, warned him about 10 days ago that he was in danger of losing the presidential election unless he revamped his campaign operation, according to two officials close to the campaign.[..]

Mr. Schmidt’s elevation is the latest sign of increasing influence of veterans of Mr. Rove’s campaign efforts in the McCain operation. Nicolle Wallace, who was communications director for Mr. Bush in the 2004 campaign and in his White House, has joined the campaign as a senior adviser, and will travel with Mr. McCain every other week. Greg Jenkins, another veteran of Mr. Rove’s operation, has joined the McCain communications operation.

Mr. Jenkins is a former Fox News producer and a director of Mr. Bush’s presidential advance team that set up political events.

“I think the time has come for Sen. Obama to not just repudiate Gen. Clark, but to cut him loose.” — Johnny McCain, July 1, 2008

Yes, I rather imagine that John McCain is wishing that Barack Obama would “cut General Wesley Clark loose.” It must be terribly embarrassing, not to mention inconvenient, to have somebody on the other side who actually has some military experience and has demonstrated some good judgment in his lifetime.

You really can’t blame Johnny and his surrogates for wishing that General Clark would just go away.

Somehow, I don’t think it’s going be quite that easy…

WASHINGTON (AP) - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark rejected suggestions he apologize Tuesday for saying John McCain’s medal-winning military service does not qualify him for the White House. Elaborating, Clark said a president must have judgment, not merely courage and character.

Courage? Perhaps. (40 years ago.) Character? Debatable.

P.S. It really is fun to watch Johnny McCain and the Republicans crying in their milk like this, isn’t it? If they can’t stand up to Wes Clark (who, by the way, is on our side), how the hell can we expect them to stand up to al Quaeda and all the other bad guys of the world?

Whatever money problems Johnny McCain may have had seem to now be a thing of the past. He just bought himself a brand new airplane. (Well, new to the McCain campaign, anyway. It’s a Boeing 737-400. Boeing delivered the last of this model in early 2000; the first was delivered in 1988.)

The New York Times reports:

The more deluxe accommodations of the plane, which will seat 95 and was paid for by the campaign, will be far different from the less grand Straight Talk bus with alternator problems that the campaign turned to after it nearly ran out of money about a year ago, and even from the Jet Blue charter that his campaign has used in this campaign.

There will be 10 first-class seats up front for Mr. McCain and his guests, as well as a telephone and a fax machine. The journalists who will sit in the back, behind the Secret Service agents, are promised electrical outlets.

And mindful of the lighting issues that have kept Mr. McCain from holding many news conferences on the old plane, the new area will be television-ready. It will be wired for microphones, have specialty lighting and have room for a television camera.

Very nice indeed. Perhaps Johnny and Cindy can keep it and use it to fly between their numerous houses after the campaign is over. (The White House, fortunately for us, will not be one of them.)

We can, you know. The Supremes (Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy) say it’s okay…

Supreme Court says Americans have right to guns

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense in their homes, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court’s 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms restrictions intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that an individual right to bear arms is supported by “the historical narrative” both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.

The Constitution does not permit “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home,” Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington’s requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, but left intact the licensing of guns.

Scalia noted that the handgun is Americans’ preferred weapon of self-defense in part because “it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police.”

I love that last line by Scalia. Like Americans had telephones with which to dial the police in 1791. Idiot.

I’m locking my doors, barring my windows and never venturing outdoors again until these idiots are gone from our government. It’s not safe. I don’t wanna get shot!

Damn those activist judges.

This sickens me…

Exxon Valdez $2.5 billion oil spill ruling overturned

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out the record $2.5 billion in punitive damages that Exxon Mobil Corp had been ordered to pay for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the nation’s worst tanker spill.

By a 5-3 vote, the high court ruled that the punitive damages award should be slashed — limited by the circumstances of the case to an amount equal to the total relevant compensatory damages of $507.5 million.

The justices overturned a ruling by a U.S. Court of Appeals that had awarded the record punitive damages to about 32,000 commercial fishermen, Alaska natives, property owners and others harmed by the nation’s worst tanker spill.

In the majority opinion, Justice David Souter concluded the $2.5 billion in punitive damages was excessive under federal maritime law, and should be cut to the amount of actual harm.

Soaring oil prices have propelled Exxon Mobil to previously unforeseen levels of profitability in recent years; the company posted earnings of $40.6 billion in 2007.

It took Exxon Mobil just under two days to bring in $2.5 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2007.

The Exxon Valdez supertanker ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in March 1989, spilling about 11 million gallons of crude oil.

The spill spread oil to more than 1,200 miles of coastline, closed fisheries and killed thousands of marine mammals and hundreds of thousands of sea birds.

Damn Republicans.

Those on the right who are feigning such outrage over the new logo of the Barack Obama presidential campaign should perhaps look in their own back yard. Here are three logos currently in use by the National Republican Senatorial Committee:

In the event that you are in need of a refresher, here is the new Obama logo:

Of the bunch, the Obama logo is definitely the most imaginative and the better looking. As I stated in my earlier post on this topic, it will serve until we take the real presidential seal away from the impostor now using it.

Besides, I still have not seen or read anything official from the campaign stating that the new logo has been adopted, nor have I seen it used other than when Senator Obama was speaking to the governors’ group last Friday. It still does not appear on the official campaign website. Perhaps the campaign was just taking it out for a test run? (If it were up to me, I’d have the dang thing woven into the new rug for the Oval Office.)

As far as I am able to determine, the official logo of the campaign continues to be this:

(h/t Mark Nickolas)

UPDATE: “Obama’s presidential seal gone after one use.” Looks like y’all can put the outrage away for use on another day.

NBC News reports “McCain to accept public financing.”

Aboard the Straight Talk Express from the airport to the hotel in Minneapolis, McCain said that his campaign has decided that it will accept public financing for the general election. “We will take public financing,” Asked what his thinking was, he said, “Because we decided to take public financing.”

That will enable McCain to spend $84 million after the GOP convention.

There needs to be, I believe, a bit of clarification on this matter. About one a half million members of the public (thus far) have contributed to Barack Obama’s campaign. Senator Obama is going to rely on the public to fund his campaign between the convention and the election. That’s public financing.

What Johnny McCain is taking is not public financing. He is taking is a handout from the federal government. He is going to rely on the government to fund his campaign.

The Republicans are throwing a tantrum because Senator Obama is not going to take the government check. And here all this time I have been led to believe that Republicans were opposed to government handouts. Isn’t self-sufficiency supposed to be a big part of their platform? You live and you learn, I guess.

There’s a website now online entitled “Women for John McCain.”

I can’t decide if it is meant to be satire or if it is for real. Whichever, it truly is amazing.

For example, right there on the main page is this icon:

Really? A wire coat hanger? I don’t think I need to tell you what that represents, do I? Anyway, if you click on it, you are taken to a page where the advantages and disadvantages of plastic hangers, wire hangers, wooden hangers and padded hangers are discussed.

On the page entitled “Choice,” we are privilege to this bit of wisdom…

John McCain has worked closely with the national press to gain his “maverick” reputation - and that’s why women are choosing John McCain! On the complicated issues of womens’ rights and reproductive choices, we need a strong man with years, and years, and years of experience in the halls of Washington to think and speak for us - and that man is John McCain. With John’s record on choice, he’s uniquely qualified to make our most personal, private choices for us as President.

We need a man with years, and years, and years of experience … to think and speak for us … [and] to make our most personal, private choices for us as President. Come on!

Under “Equal Pay…”

When the Equal Pay issue supported by radical leftists Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton came up for a vote in April 2008, John McCain showed his strong support for women by missing the Senate vote to campaign in front of an audience - with women in attendance - in New Orleans, the city that John McCain showed his maverick leadership style by eating birthday cake in Arizona with President George W. Bush on August 29th, 2005 - the day Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in one of the worst natural disasters in American history - before Bush headed to the Pueblo El Mirage RV Resort and Country Club for a chat with seniors about his plans to privatize Medicare.

“Family Leave…”

John McCain knows that allowing freeloaders who want to take time off to care for their newborn babies, or attend to their children when they get hurt or fall ill, isn’t as important as making sure that compliance would not increase business expenses or provide financial assistance to businesses to cover any related costs. While countries in Europe may offer family and medical leave that goes beyond what most American workers receive, and some employers even allow paid time off for liberals who don’t earn their keep, it’s the “rugged individualism” of leaders like John McCain that reminds us that as Americans, we shouldn’t be afraid to do things differently than what may be the status quo in other developed nations.

Shall I go on? Oh, okay, just one more.

“Teen Pregnancy…”

Teen pregnancy is a serious issue as our nation forges ahead in the 21st Century. And while John McCain’s platform has many serious issues, few are so important to the next generation as the problem of teen pregnancy in our country.

That’s why John McCain voted against an amendment in the Senate’s 2006 fiscal year budget that would have provided 100 million dollars to our schools to reduce teen pregnancy through sex education, use of contraceptives, lower the incidence of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, make birth control more affordable, and improve access to women’s health care. Because if our teenagers and young adult daughters remain innocent, if we take a stand as Americans to protect them from sex education and birth control until they’re married, we can stop teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases before they start.

Go check out the entire site, then come back and tell me what you think. Is it real or is it Memorex? Whichever, it truly is an amazing piece of work.

This just gets more fun by the day.

From an AP report today:

“The Democrats want to go back to a pre-September 11th view of terrorism … The Democrats, led by Barack Obama, want to go back to being on defense,” Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and top McCain surrogate said Wednesday, a day after McCain’s campaign claimed Obama is naive and “a perfect manifestation a September 10th mind-set.”

So suddenly Rudy Giuliani has become Johnny’s McCain’s top surrogate on national security?

Let’s go back and see what Johnny had to say about Rudy in September of last year…

“I think the nation respects the mayor’s leadership after 9/11, and I do, too, and I think he displayed leadership at a time that Americans needed some steady hand, and I think that his conduct was very laudatory following 9/11,” Mr. McCain said, when asked why so many voters identify Mr. Giuliani with the issue of terrorism.

But he went on to say: “I don’t think it translates, necessarily, into foreign policy or national security expertise. I know of nothing in his background that indicates that he has any experience in it, with him or Romney.”

And we know of nothing, Senator McCain, that would indicate that you have any experience in it, either. Unless, of course, four and a half years spent in a prisoner of war camp count as national security experience. We think that’s laudatory and all, but it does not quite translate.

On another note, is it just me or is it becoming more and more obvious that Mr. McCain is having difficulty remembering what he said in the recent past? Either his memory is slipping or he’s a lying political opportunist. In either case, I don’t think we want to entrust him with the highest office in the land… particularly after we are just finishing up with another lying political opportunist in that position.