The White House's unmistakable delight at its ability to fixate the media on a John Kerry blooper serves as a potent reminder of how much happier Bush and his aides are engaging in rhetorical games than dealing with reality.

--Dan Froomkin, Washington Post

Modified Image: Geschichtsthemen.de, MedioBistro.com
- posted by Sean @ 3:05 PM 0 comments  

 

One of Geoff Davis’ most smarmy attacks against his Democratic opponent Ken Lucas have been the series of expensively produced “Erpenbeck letter” commercials.
The letter, sent in 2004 by sitting Congressman Ken Lucas to Federal District Court Judge William Bertelsman, asked that Judge Bertelsman consider mercy when sentencing an elderly former bank president for his manipulated involvement a multi-million dollar fraud case involving home builder Bill Erpenbeck.
Davis’ relentless TV attacks imply collusion and ill-gotten gain while failing to mention that Mr. Lucas’ letter merely asked for mercy when considering the sentencing of one elderly man.
The Cincinnati Post, yesterday, reported that Mr. Davis, currently trailing (click on map) in the polls, might have tarred himself with his own broad brush:

At least four of Davis' campaign contributors wrote similar letters, according to records in U.S. District Court… Democrats are crying foul over the attack on Lucas, saying dozens of people wrote letters.

Republicans always attack around what they perceive as their own failings or weaknesses.
We have seen many examples over the last few days including yesterday’s Bush-manufactured Kerry flap, the Veep’s wrangle with Rangel and Lynne Cheney’s novel interpretations of military and lesbian fiction.
It is not often, as with the lamentable fiction of Mr. Davis' attacks, that tables are turned so smartly before an election.

Image: CreativeBusinessAdventure.com, House.gov, Sample-Resignation-Letters.com
- posted by Sean @ 6:38 AM 0 comments  

 
Has coverage of a recent military calamity been shushed off our bunting-draped TV election news desks?
And if if this story has disappeared who could be the beneficiary, pray tell?


A link from a blog commenter caused me to remember a series of explosions at an American “ammo dump” that I watched live on CNN on the evening of October 10, 2006.
Here's another link to the dramatic home video that was shot by an American soldier...the video has a very interesting audio track.
The explosions were quite large and even in CNN’s grainy live night vision image, I could see flaming debris flying in large arcs and igniting more of the dark landscape.
CNN reporters in the Green Zone reported that the explosions were “quite large” and could be felt miles away from the scene.
The blog commenter and his link reminded me that this story has, like so many others during these Bush years, disappeared.
Image and text Google searches reveal that the story has been removed from most domestic corporate news servers.
If you don’t want to take my word click on one of the several explosion photos associated with local American TV stations shown on the search pages.
While these small images are still available, the stories that accompanied them have been for the most part erased.
This is the MyDD page the original poster linked for my reading.
Houston Independent Media links to several sources that claim large numbers of casualties and equipment losses.
Rense.com has pictures of Forward Base Falcon after the October 10 explosions.
This Iraqi blog posted during the explosions.
My pricy membership in New York Times Select allowed access to this October 11th report, which drops any mention of the Falcon explosions into the 4th paragraph:

A series of huge explosions that shook the capital over several hours late Tuesday evening, apparently caused by a fire inside an ammunition holding area at a United States military base in southern Baghdad.
The origins of the blaze are still being investigated, but it set off ammunition and ordnance, including tank rounds and artillery.

Something happened outside Baghdad during the local early morning hours of October 10 and 11th.
What happened and its importance to American voters I cannot say except that I did watch these massive explosions as CNN reported live during the prime time American TV viewing hours of October 10, 2006.
I would urge you to examine these links, to perform you own Internet searches and to ponder this story’s domestic US disappearance mere days before a referendum on our current execution of this most unfortunate sideshow to the War on those responsible for the 911 attack.

Images: Google
- posted by Sean @ 12:52 PM 0 comments  

 

Porn Fuels GOP TV Blitz

Note that some links in this post are X-rated

While far too hot, hot, hot for coverage by the prim fair-weather Puritans of the mainstream media, the blogosphere is reminding American voters that the current avalanche of righteously accusatory RNC-funded political TV smears is being partially greased by contributions from the most successful makers and distributors of heterosexual and homosexual pornographic media in the United States.
As the Foley scandal may further illuminate, this particular ruling branch of evolving “born again” neorepublicanism has long been dogged by hypocritical whispers of extreme sexual naughtiness.
And, though ambisexual porn star Mary Carey received fairly widespread MSM attention at the beginning of this past summer for her cash political contribution, presidential meeting and unnatural lust for the First Twins, the sex most often whispered near Bushites large and small concerns, more often than not, boys.
Curiously, the Republican political contributions from the Marina Pacific Distributors of pornographic media highlight another kinky theme that has quietly dogged the 2nd Bush presidency, gay military pornography.
From Jeff Gannon to Abu Ghraib to Mark Foley, today’s ruling neo-Republican tastes or fetishes range from boyish male swimmers to burly, manly drill sergeants.

Detail of DVD cover art

Take for example the X-rated online blurb (if you will pardon the expression) for Marina Pacific’s pornographic “active duty production” of the all male DVD, Fire In the Hole:

Hot American soldiers having wild gay sex. You may have read about these titles getting some of our enlisted in trouble with the military. You won't believe your eyes with all the hardcore action from these actual soldiers.

As we near Election Day and as the obscene TV juggernaut of RNC-funded smear advertisements unbelievably increase tempo, fellow average American voters must consider the unsavory associations and desires this unbounded cash and power have obviously engendered.
The above blurb actually reminds the average online porn shopper of the mainstream media and current political associations with gay pornography as a selling point.
Whispered and unpublished Abu Ghraib photos, occasional lurid news accounts of active-duty personnel busted for making porn and Jeff Gannon’s lucrative online business activities, should give church-going voters serious pause when seeing these themes boiled down into a $56.95 XXX DVD courtesy of a major GOP contributor.
All this smoke would tend to suggest burning wet logs of some sort.
Voters next Tuesday, no matter the Republican TV tsunami of manufactured “issues”, need only to remember John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton’s often misquoted albeit still caustically true aphorism, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Modified Image: Google

- posted by Sean @ 12:39 PM 0 comments