Mitch McConnell (R) Ky & the Republicans: NOW vs. NOW

Energy prices, especially gas prices, are hitting us Americans hard. So hard, in fact, energy, according to CBS News, is a huge campaign issue:

Thus far, it’s McCain who has most suffered from that irritation. On an issue that three in four registered voters believe will be “very important” in making their “decision about who to vote for this fall” – a greater portion of voters than those who cite terrorism, moral values or the war in Iraq – Pew shows Republicans lagging Democrats by 15 percentage points on who will give “greater priority” to energy. link

The enmity of the issue inspires headlines such as: “John McCain’s gas-tax holiday is back (as stupid as ever)” out of Missouri and “McCain Invested in Gas-Tax Gimick” out of the Blogoshere.

This last headline is especially damning considering the news today:

NOW:

Mitch McConnell, (R) Kentucky, and Minority leader in the Senate, had this to say about a Democratic-sponsored “Consumer-First” energy bill that would have taxed windfall profits the oil companies are making off of our backs:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Hitting the gas companies might make for good campaign literature or evening news clips, but it won’t address the problem. This bill isn’t a serious response to gas prices. It is just a gimmick.” CNN link

Blocking legislation that would provide some real energy-relief in the long-term (as opposed to the ‘gas-tax holiday’ Band-Aid) is not going to help the Republicans in the long run. Note:

NOW:

“Among the true independents this is just the kind of issue that cuts hard,” he said. Independents have been particularly turned off by McCain’s gas tax holiday proposal – a May Quinnipiac poll found independent voters were more likely to disapprove than approve of his gas tax holiday plan by 18 percentage points, a gap more than twice that of party-registered voters.

It’s not just independents who are concerned, though. A record 94 percent of Americans believe that the “energy situation” is “very serious” or “fairly serious,” according to the latest polling by Gallup this March. The previous high was 85 percent in February of 1979, shortly before the price of crude oil reached a then-record high of $103 per barrel in 2008 dollars in April 1980 – a record that held until earlier this year.

CBS news Link

McConnell is up for reelection this year. He’s been a Senator since 1984. It’s time to send this hack home. Him and the rest of the Republicans who block relief for REAL Americans.

McCain: THEN vs. NOW

Seriously, I remember days when I thought, “Wow. McCain isn’t your average Republican.” For example:

THEN:

During his 2000 Presidential bid: We are the party of Theodore Roosevelt, not the party of special interests.

During his 2000 Presidential bid: We are the party of Ronald Reagan, not Pat Robertson.

But then something went wrong. Bush beat McCain out in 2000 for the Republican nomination, and, throughout the course of Bush’s presidency, the Republican party changed. The ‘maverick’ senator from Arizona had to change to or risk being left behind.

Hence:

NOW:

From his 2008 Presidential bid: Everybody says that they’re against the special interests. I’m the only one the special interests don’t give any money to.

Yet, follow the money.

From his 2008 Presidential bid on Hagee: I will say that he said that his words were taken out of context, he defends his position. I hope that maybe you’d give him a chance to respond.

After Hagee said this and this and this.

McCain’s branding himself as nothing more than the typical Republican. That’s too bad. Pre-2001, McCain, whether or not people like me or people like the Republican Party agreed with him, did seem to speak his mind.

Unfortunately, with votes like these:

• Supports repealing Roe v. Wade. (May 2007)
• Voted YES on barring HHS grants to organizations that perform abortions. (Oct 2007)
• Voted YES on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. (Jul 2006)
• Voted NO on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. (Mar 2005)
• Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions except for maternal life. (Mar 2003)
• Voted YES on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions. (Jun 2000)
• Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions. (Oct 1999)
• Voted YES on banning human cloning. (Feb 1998 )
• Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record. (Dec 2003)
• Rated 75% by the NRLC, indicating a mixed record on abortion. (Dec 2006) link

and these:

Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
Rated 0% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record. (Dec 2002)
Rated 33% by the HRC, indicating a mixed record on gay rights. (Dec 2006)
Rated 7% by the NAACP, indicating an anti-affirmative-action stance. (Dec 2006) link

we can’t afford to have that mind running our White House.

Orange Revolution: THEN vs NOW

Then:

Ukraine’s Pro-Western, Anti-Russian, Anti-corruption Orange Revolution.

Now:

The Democrats are saying McCain lobbyists worked for “Anti-Western Political Party,” yet they show a picture of the Ukraine’s Orange Party “Our Ukraine”–who are PRO-WESTERN. It’s the Party of Regions who are ANTI-WEST. And it’s the PRO-RUSSIAN parties Rick Davis helped out. NOT THE PRO-WESTERN “OUR UKRAINE” PARTY!.

DEMOCRATS! GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT! YOU HAVE THE MOMENTUM–DON’T MAKE DUMB MISTAKES!

Barack Obama: NOW NOW NOW

Say hello to the NEXT President of the United States.

The Hoop & Jaime Nared: THEN vs NOW

Have you heard about the Jaime Nared story? If you haven’t, she’s a 12-year-old girl who’s been kicked out of a basketball league in Oregon because of complaints against her…

Against her playing well and embarrassing the boys by showing them up.

The coach, Michael Abraham, says, “I think the complaints come from parents who don’t like seeing a girl that good playing against their sons.”

The Hoop says it’s because the league wasn’t supposed to be co-ed–though they seemed to have taken the fees for the co-ed team to play in their league anyway.

So I wrote the Hoop an email, which you’ll find below, after I read their previous press release (today’s ‘THEN’). I received quite the response (today’s ‘NOW.’)

Then:

The Hoop’s press release.

Note that they spell her name wrong.

Now (in an email response to me today):

Matt Isborn: Actually you are wrong. We never accepted the registration fee from the Nared family. Team Concept registered their teams with our league and signed off on our policies when they did register. We never did allow Jamie (sic; he spelled her name wrong too) to play in this league. This has been reported with incorrect facts from the beginning.

My original email: I just wanted to write and say how saddened I am at the message you all at The Hoop just taught a twelve-year-old girl: If you’re better than the boys, if you embarrass the boys, we’ll find a way to get rid of you. Despite your press statement, “The Hoop stands by its decision to not change the rules of our Spring League while in progress,” your true motivations for kicking Jaime Nared off the team are apparent: She played better than the boys, and the boys’ parents pressured you to remove her from the team. If you don’t want to change the rules ‘while in progress,’ you should have enforced them from the beginning. You’re now changing the league ‘while in progress.’

If you were truly interested in enforcing policy, you wouldn’t have accepted the registration fee from a girl for a male only team in the first place.

As a former Oregon citizen–living in Eugene–I am embarrassed for the state of Oregon. In our world, no decision stays local anymore. It’d be good to remember that.

Seems like the talking point–saying the decision was made to ‘enforce’ established rules–wasn’t forwarded to this guy, who’s blaming a proxy organization (Team Concept) for not following the rules. The Hoop’s press release doesn’t mention, at all, the reason Matt Isborn has written to me. Maybe it should have if that was the reason.

Also, from a business sense, The Hoop, somewhere along the line, received Jaime’s registration fee. I don’t see an organization such as The Hoop allowing teams to use their facilities (& league system) for free.

For any girls and women reading this: If people tell you to go away or be quiet when you are outperforming men–DO. NOT. LISTEN. Do it more.

SF Giants: THEN vs. NOW

Just caught a game yesterday in AT&T Park in SF. We were playing my wife’s team: the SD Padres. It’s the Giants 51st season in SF. Neither team is doing well this season, so I decided to see how this years standings compare to the standings from 50 years ago. So…

THEN:

NOW:

le sigh….

White House tell-alls:THEN vs. NOW

Former Press Secretary for Bush, Scott McClellan, is releasing his book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception. The book, from all the reviews so far, throws the Bush presidency under the. freaking. bus. However, the reaction from the White House is uber-similar to reactions to other White House tell-alls. Ergo…

Then (2004):

In his book “Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror,” published Monday, Clarke accuses the Bush administration of ignoring repeated warnings about an al Qaeda threat in 2001 and looking for an excuse to attack Iraq at the expense of battling terrorism.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Clarke “wasn’t in the loop” on major decisions and may hold a personal grudge against Rice. He told listeners of Rush Limbaugh’s conservative radio program Monday that Clarke may have wanted a more “prominent position.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that Clarke’s “assertions are deeply irresponsible and they are flat-out wrong.” He also said Clarke’s “past comments and actions contradict his current rhetoric when it comes to Iraq.” “If Dick Clarke had such grave concerns, why wait so long? Why wait until the election?” Instead, McClellan said, Clarke “conveniently” released a book in the middle of the campaign season. LINK

Now:

(CNN) — White House Press Secretary Dana Perino just released the following statement on former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new book.

“Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad – this is not the Scott we knew.

“The book, as reported by the press, has been described to the President. I do not expect a comment from him on it – he has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers.” LINK

MORE RIGHT-WING REACTIONS HERE.

The irony is thick but not unwelcome. The right is apoplectic (currently my favorite word). They are calling him a traitor, Benedict, and a ‘left-wing blogger.’

Note, however, they are not calling him a liar.

Interacial Marriage & Gay Marriage: THEN vs. NOW

THEN:

12 June 1967. US Supreme Court. Chief Justice Warren:

This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment. (link)

NOW:

15 May 2008. Supreme Court of California. Chief Justice George:

Under these circumstances, we cannot find that retention of the traditional definition of marriage constitutes a compelling state interest. Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional. (link)

The two judges, Warren and George, who wrote the opinions, were both nominated by Republicans (President Eisenhower & Calif. Gov. Pete Wilson, respectively).

Hopefully this good news will remain?

Bush: THEN vs NOW

THEN:

Prescott Sheldon Bush made money off of Nazi atrocities. From the Guardian:

George Bush’s grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company’s assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz ….

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator’s action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

…

While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen’s US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

NOW:

President George W. Bush debases the office of the President by attacking Americans while standing on foreign soil. According to the prepared text of the speech from the Wall Street Journal:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Some people suggest that if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of our enemies, and America rejects it utterly. Israel’s population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because America stands with you.

All the other blogs (TPM, Crooks and Liars, even Chris Matthews) are calling this what is it better than I can. But, for a man whose family profited in some way from the Nazi machine, this is a deceitful, bloody, and reprehensible statement. Bush, and the right wing machine, have no grasp of history. Unfortunately, neither do the suckers who buy his arguments. The US Education system is failing us RIGHT. NOW.

Lieberman: THEN v. NOW

Lieberman 1999:

Lieberman 2008:

Another Zell Miller / Brutus? Yup. But, Harry Reid says ol’ Lieb could be stripped of his chairmanship.