The 25 most recent front page posts

Max Blumenthal | Pastor Hagee: The Antichrist Is Gay, “Partially Jewish, As Was Adolph Hitler” http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15034%3E
On March 16, 2003, on the eve of the United States’ invasion of Iraq, Pastor John Hagee took to the pulpit to warn of the coming Antichrist. In his sermon, “The Final Dictator,” Hagee described the Antichrist as a seductive figure with “fierce features.” He will be “a blasphemer and a homosexual,” the pastor announced. Then, Hagee boomed, “There’s a phrase …
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15034%3E

Tom Engelhardt | Tomgram: Chris Hedges on War and Occupation, American-style
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15033%3E
American soldiers have long scrawled messages to the enemy on the bombs they were about to deliver. In the The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes reminds us, for instance, that “Little Boy,” the bomb that would inaugurate a new age over Hiroshima, “was inscribed with autographs and messages, some of them obscene. ‘Greetings…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15033%3E

Robert Scheer | What Makes McCain Tick?
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15032%3E
from Truthdig
Will the real John McCain stand up? Actually, I don’t expect him to, now that he is the Republican presidential candidate, pandering to the irrationalities that drive his party. Nor is it likely that the fawning mass media will pressure him to the point of clarity. But I remain genuinely confused as to what makes him tick. McCain …
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15032%3E

Eric Boehlert | Me and Scott McClellan, brothers in arms
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15031%3E
“Some Bush defenders, including former press secretary Ari Fleischer, [suggested] that McClellan may have had a ghostwriter or undergone heavy-handed editing.” Washington Post, May 30. “McCellan’s publisher, Peter Osnos, denies that a ghostwriter worked over McClellan’s draft.” Slate, May 28. Now that Scott McClellan has come clean in his book about the …
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15031%3E

RJ Eskow | Letter to a Clinton Supporter
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15030%3E
Sure, we’ve had our differences. We’ve seen the Clintons in very different
ways, you and I – especially their campaign tactics. Where you’ve seen
honest if tough campaigning, I’ve seen the cynical manipulation of divisive
emotions and a desire to put self before others. The race is over, so the
question is: Now what? Are you going to cling to the…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15030%3E

Walter C. Uhler | Scott McClellan’s Residual Affection for Bush (the
Psychopath?) http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15029%3E
After two weeks of great cuisine and culture in Positano and Rome, I
returned to the U.S. only to learn that it’s still news in my country – the
United States of Amnesia — when another insider from the Bush
administration admits that President Bush eagerly sought war with Iraq.
Indeed, the media are falling over themselves in order to cycle, recycle and
…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15029%3E

Dave Lindorff | What About the Iraqis?
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15028%3E
I found myself listing to a talk radio show on NPR’s Philadelphia affiliate
WHYY today, which focused in part on the agonies suffered by families of
American troops killed or seriously maimed in Iraq. Left unsaid–and this I
think is the case in nearly all the reporting that gets done on the costs of
the Iraq War that are being borne here in the US by…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15028%3E

Cenk Uygur | Hillary Holds Her Voters Hostage
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15027%3E
I was going to write about what a horrible speech John McCain gave tonight.
About how he has no chance of winning (barring a world changing event) and
this is as good as it gets for him. I was going to explain how awkward and
painful a speech that was, especially compared to the dynamic and energetic
Clinton and Obama speeches. This was what was going …
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15027%3E

Jack Lessenberry | Dems get one right
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15026%3E
Readers of this column know that I have often been sharply critical of Mark
Brewer, state Democratic Party chair, and his assorted partners in crime.
Well, guess what. I think he deserves praise for helping come up with and
promote a sensible compromise that got Michigan’s delegates finally seated
at the national convention. For months, it has looked like…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15026%3E

Ernest Partridge | A New Day Dawning
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15024%3E
The Partridges are feeling insufferably smug these days. Halfway through the
Bush regime, we cashed in our stocks, bought our house outright and tore up
our mortgage. Though declining in value in this housing market crash, our
…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15024%3E

Michael Collins | The New Electoral Math – Obama Wins
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15023%3E
Here are my numbers on the electoral drama of under representation called
the Electoral College. But first, for some politics. Political factors weigh
heavily. Hillary Clinton is trying to extort the Vice President’s slot from
team Obama. “Take me, pay my debt, and let me stab you …
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15023%3E

Bernard Weiner | Sidney Pollack, Scott McClellan, and the Wars for Oil
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15021%3E
OK, let’s connect the dots: The Iraq War & Occupation. Scott McClellan’s
memoir. The death of film director Sydney Pollack. When I heard about the
death of Pollack last week, I happened coincidentally to be rewatching one
of his earliest films, from 1971, “Three Days of the Condor.” In it, Robert
Redford plays a…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15021%3E

Brent Budowsky | A Historic Day http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15015%3E
The nominee is chosen, the first African- American in history to be a
major-party nominee for president, and a very real prospect of a presidency
that could be of historic dimension for change for America. What a week. On
Monday one of the great heroes of the Democratic Party underwent dangerous
but successful surgery. On Tuesday the nomination of the…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15015%3E

Margie Burns | Electoral College Math: Democrats cannot win by avoiding
losing. They have to play to win.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15014%3E
Attempting to calculate Sen. Barack Obama¹s way to win, one begins again
with a sizable bloc of Democratic electoral votes. The next logical step is
how to add to them while maximizing ways the campaign benefits the nation.
As in my previous blog post, one begins with the fact that solidly
Democratic votes in the Electoral College substantially exceed …
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15014%3E

Pierre Tristam | Insured or not, few are secure in U.S. health system
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15012%3E
The Zammit family of Deltona is the victim of two staggering injustices. No
one can be blamed for the first, at least no one here and now. Nathan
Zammit, 16, has had a brain tumor and half his skull removed. He faces eight
months of chemotherapy. The second injustice is more like a crime because
it’s man-made: A health care system that punishes and ruins…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15012%3E

David Swanson | Will McCain Name Torture Ships for Big Donors?
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15011%3E
The United States maintains secret prisons on ships in the ocean in order to
detain people outside the reach or even the knowledge of any system of law,
the better to torture the ever-living cheney out of them. Over at the Black
Commentator, Glen Ford (now at the Black Agenda Report) has been calling the
Bush Cheney gang pirates for years. And the point is…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15011%3E

Gary Leupp | The Ongoing Revolution in Nepal
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15010%3E
On April 10, 2008, a very special election was held in Nepal. It was an
election for representatives to a Constituent Assembly to produce a new
constitution and government after a period of protracted crisis in the
Himalayan nation. Voter turnout was 63% and the process was pronounced free
and fair by international monitors…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15010%3E

Steve Young | What Happened…To Bill O’Reilly?
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15009%3E
I’m sorry. I can’t do it justice. It’s just to rich. You’ll just have to
watch it yourself (below). Surprisingly, it doesn’t take a strong stomach.
It’s remarkably entertaining. O’Reilly’s sad, thirty minute attempt to scold
Scott McClellan left Bill a frustrated and defeated…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15009%3E

Norman Solomon | Obama, Clinton and Anger to Burn
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15008%3E
In politics, as in so many other aspects of life, anger is a combustible
fuel. Affirmed and titrated, it helps us move forward. Suppressed or
self-indulged, it’s likely to blow up in our faces. With the race for the
2008 Democratic presidential nomination coming to a close, there’s plenty of
anger in the air. And the elements are distinctly flammable. As …
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15008%3E

RJ Eskow | Bo Diddley Was a Gunslinger
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15007%3E
Bo Diddley is dead. He was a living gateway between times and places who
brought African rhythms and African-American chants into the Top Forty.
Together with Chuck Berry, he built rock and roll. He also built his own
guitars, from spare parts (his first one was made from a cigar box.) Then he
played them through overloaded amplifiers, transmitting ancient…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15007%3E

Bill Gallagher | Madness Engulfs Public Discourse
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15006%3E
Listening to the weeping and gnashing of teeth from Sen. Hillary Clinton’s
zealots you’d have to conclude that if the Michigan and Florida delegations
to the Democratic National Convention were not seated exactly as they
demanded it amounts to a chilling assault on representative democracy and a
massive…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15006%3E

Michael Fox | The Republican Revolution You Haven¹t Heard About
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15004%3E
What was once journalism is now a non-stop variety show of punditry,
complete with flashy graphics, musical scores, and just for authenticity,
the occasional cutaway to car crashes and fires and obituaries. Of course, a
whole panoply of stars, boldface names both old and new are have emerged ­
but there has only been one topic, and the missing, contrasting…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15004%3E

Tony Hendra | Prominent Right Wing Coward Smears Obama for Not Considering
Military Service http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15002%3E
Super-star NYT Op-Ed columnist Billy Kristol shot one off today that
outslimed even his own epic levels of sliminess. The doughty Vietnam non-vet
took Senator Obama to task for giving a commencement address at Wesleyan
this weekend in which he didn’t remind his “elite” audience that military
service was one kind of public service they might consider…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15002%3E

RJ Eskow | “Burn This Party to the Ground”: How the Democratic Party Blew
the Communications Part of Its Florida/Michigan Decisions
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14995%3E
There were a number of reasons why the Rules Committee made the decisions it
did on Saturday, some of them easier to understand than others. But this
weekend it continued to use words like “penalty” and “punish,” which has
been its tactical error all along. When people hear words like these, they
don’t make fine distinctions between “punishing” delegations…
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14995%3E

Fred Cederholm | SEMANTICS: There is Tradition at Stake, the U.S.A. Prevails
– the United Spinning(s) of America is as American as Apple Pie.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14994%3E
I¹ve been thinking about semantics. Actually I¹ve been thinking about books,
hypothetical contingencies, our financial messes, election 2008, and USA –
the United Spinning(s) of America. Semantics are word games. Semantics
involve choosing/ using ³loaded words and phrases² to bias opinions in favor
of your agenda, your objective, and your side. In …
Read more http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14994%3E