Tag: Obama

What the Candidates Drive

Obama’s lone vehicle also is a green machine, a 2008 Ford Escape hybrid. He bought it last year to replace the family’s Chrysler 300C, a Hemi-powered sedan. Obama ditched the 300C, once 50 Cent’s preferred ride, after taking heat for driving a guzzler while haranguing Detroit about building more fuel-efficient cars.

We knew about Palin’s government-provided Suburban, a hockey-mom prerequisite. Her SUV ownership reminds us that for some ever-growing families, a seven-passenger car is truly the most efficient means of transport. Plus, it’s big honkin’ V8 is great for hauling snowmachines and a quick getaway during a Russian attack. It’s also surprising that such a strong proponent of offshore drilling drives a car that can get better gas mileage than a Prius. Continue reading “What the Candidates Drive”

How Florida Could Screw Up The Election Again

Back in 2002, Congress passed something called the Help America Vote Act, which was supposed to prevent eligible voters from being turned away at the polls because of unresolved paperwork issues. Under the act, these voters are entitled to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day, and their status is later investigated to determine whether their votes should be counted.

Sounds voter friendly. But a lot of things can go wrong with a provisional ballot, especially in Florida. Continue reading “How Florida Could Screw Up The Election Again”

Inflatergate Exposed – Tire Gauge Co. Funds Obama

Tire Gauge Industry Pumps Up Obama Campaign Coffers | Autopia from Wired.com

On June 16th, 2008, John Zimmerman, chief financial officer of Tomkins, gave nearly $7,000 in campaign contributions to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Lo and behold, nary two months later Obama’s in Springfield, Mo, suggesting drivers inflate their tires to save gas (and, by the way, curb CO2 emissions). Coincidence? We think not. Does it come as any surprise that Tomkins owns the Syracuse Gauge Company, which bills itself as manufacturing the “largest selection and variety of tools in the United States for filling tires [and] checking tire pressure”?

Perhaps the most shocking part of Inflategate is the politicization of a suggestion so simple as following the instructions found in your car’s owners manual. It’s also something of a tempest in a teapot, seeing how all new cars must have tire-pressure monitors.

Will Europe Understand President Obama?

Democracies Can’t Compromise on Core Values – WSJ.com
To Europeans, identity and democracy are locked in a zero-sum struggle. Strong identities, especially religious or national identities, are seen as a threat to democratic life. This is what Dominique Moisi, a special adviser at the French Institute of International Relations, meant when he said in 2006 that “the combination of religion and nationalism in America is frightening. We feel betrayed by God and by nationalism, which is why we are building the European Union as a barrier to religious warfare.”

This attitude can be traced back to the French Revolution, when the forces fighting under a universal banner of “liberty, equality and fraternity” were pitted against the Church.

In contrast, the America to which pilgrims flocked in search of religious freedom, and whose revolution amounted to an assertion of national identity, has been able to reconcile identity and freedom in a way no country has been able to match.

Continue reading “Will Europe Understand President Obama?”

All Hail The Coming of Obama

He ventured forth to bring light to the world | Gerard Baker – Times Online
And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites. Continue reading “All Hail The Coming of Obama”

Irish View of Our Election

We, in Ireland, can’t figure out why people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States.

On one side, you have a pants wearing lawyer, married to a lawyer who can’t keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer who goes to the wrong church who is married to yet another lawyer who doesn’t even like the country her husband wants to run.

Now…on the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate Mc terminology, married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship.

What in Lord’s name are you lads thinking over there in the colonies?

Thanks to that Leprechaun Joe Greene

Wanted – Obama Jokes

Want Obama in a Punch Line? First, Find a Joke – NYTimes.com
Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the ABC late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” said of Mr. Obama, “There’s a weird reverse racism going on. You can’t joke about him because he’s half-white. It’s silly. I think it’s more a problem because he’s so polished, he doesn’t seem to have any flaws.”

Mr. Maher said that being sensitive to Mr. Obama was in no way interfering with his commentary, though on HBO he has more freedom about content than other comedians. “There’s been this question about whether he’s black enough,” Mr. Maher said. “I have this joke: What does he have to do? Dunk? He bowled a 37 — to me, that’s black enough.”

Mr. Kimmel said, “His ears should be the focus of the jokes.” Continue reading “Wanted – Obama Jokes”

Grim proving ground for Obama’s housing policy

Grim proving ground for Obama’s housing policy – The Boston Globe
The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair.

As a result, some people in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods are torn between a natural inclination to support Obama and a concern about his relationships with the developers they hold responsible for Chicago’s affordable housing failures. Some housing advocates worry that Obama has not learned from those failures.

“I’m not against Barack Obama,” said Willie J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and a former public housing resident. “What I am against is some of the people around him.”

Jamie Kalven, a longtime Chicago housing activist, put it this way: “I hope there is not much predictive value in his history and in his involvement with that community.” Video