Daily Dave

An email from the Mejias Campaign today, reprinted in its entirety:

FARMINGDALE - The message is clear - Peter King is running scared. A Newsday article printed yesterday exposed Peter King's failed campaign strategy. In a campaign letter targeted, according to the article, "more to Jews than others," King criticized his opponent, Nassau County Legislator Dave Mejias, for taking campaign contributions from men King calls "radical" Muslim leaders on Long Island. The problem: federal records show King accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the same Muslim leaders. King's smear campaign has been thoroughly debunked in the press, and reveals that King will sink to new lows in order to protect his seat in Congress.

"Peter King has finally realized that he is in serious danger of losing his job in November," said Dave Mejias. "Like Republicans across the country, King has resorted to using Karl Rove's politics of hate to cover up his poor record in Congress. King uses his first mailing of the campaign to attack me, and wound up exposing himself as nothing but a hypocrite. Peter King owes an apology to every family that received that shameful letter."

The news of Peter King's campaign of character assassination has provoked outrage. Rabbi Michael L. Kramer of Temple Judea in Massapequa said "Congressman Peter King's letter to his constituents, tying his opponent, Dave Mejias, to Islamic financial support when he has accepted even more money from the Islamic community is hypocritical, dishonest, and a political deceit." Additionally, today's editorial in Newsday calls King's strategy "an ugly attempt at guilt by association," and discredits King's disturbing accusations about local Muslim leaders. The last sentence of the editorial unmistakably illustrates King as the fraud he truly is, saying "for King to imply that Mejias is tainted for taking money from people whose money he himself also accepted is just plain hypocritical." [my ems]

Learn about the candidate and volunteer - Dave for America

Contribute - Dave's ActBlue page.

Vote for Dave Mejias. Do you live in NY-03?

Update:

The Long Island Press has an article on our man today too.

Charlie Brown Update

After a trans-county phone call (don't laugh - it's a hundred miles) to Col. Brown's campaign office, I was just paid a personal visit by his local rep, Espresso, a lovely young lady who also posts for Charlie at Kos. Here's a comment from her I found at Charlie's Kos diary:

Charlie we thank you for your service. And we thank Jan and your son who is still serving today.

As many of you know my sister was killed in the First Gulf War (or the First Bush War of Aggression as my family calls it), and I really want to see someone as my Congressman who has first hand knowledge of what it means and what it takes to send someones child to war.

Charlie is courageous, honest as the day is long, funny, smart as hell and a true patriot. Charlie did not take multiple deferments (as did Doolittle our current corrupt congresscritter) and served a total of 26 years because he believes in what the US is meant to stand for.

When we send Charlie to Congress in November, it will be a step forward for our country by taking a step back to our basic values of ethics, morality and common sense.

If you can, send him money, or if you live in or near his District (CA 04) put a bumper sticker on your car and a yard sign in your yard. It's time to take our country back!

I think I'm in good company.

I now have a sign in my yard and a spare for giving away, and a raft of bumperstickers including the rare and collectible "Dump Doolittle" one!

I also have a postage paid envelope (a 37¢ and a 2¢ stamp - this is grassroots!) to send Charlie a small (I'm not a Republican, after all!) donation.

She was out of badges to wear on my gimme caps. Waaaah! I'll get one...

According to Espresso, Charlie will be in my area on Oct. 14. I am now on her e-mail list as well as Charlie's, so I will be locally informed.

I'm starting to get involved and it feels good.

Charlie Brown for Congress

Maybe I'll switch to macaroni salad...

LATimes

The bacterium that has sickened people across the nation and forced growers to destroy spinach crops is so pervasive in the Salinas Valley that virtually every waterway there violates national standards.

"There are many sources of water coming into the watershed, and I guarantee you that they all have generic E. coli," and many carry the deadly E. coli strain linked to food poisonings, said Christopher Rose, an environmental scientist at the state's Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, which tests the region's waterways.

Monterey County's Salinas Valley is one of the world's most intensely farmed regions and a major supplier of lettuce and spinach to the nation. The current outbreak of food poisoning marks the 20th time since 1995 that the dangerous E. coli strain has been linked to lettuce or spinach.

The source of the pathogen has not yet been pinpointed, but tainted water is considered a likely culprit.

Many creeks and streams near the region's spinach fields, including the Salinas River, Gabilan Creek, Towne Creek, Tembladero Slough and Old Salinas River Estuary, are known to be carriers of the E. coli strain implicated in the food poisonings. When consumed, people experience cramping, diarrhea and, in severe cases, kidney failure.

Although the growers do not draw water from creeks to irrigate their fields, their crops could be tainted by runoff from nearby livestock operations or Central Coast urban areas.

I just had the awful thought that some Hindu somewhere has violated his dietary restrictions against beef, er, byproducts, yeah, that's it, by eating a salad.

Folks on the Central Coast are very nice, though.

Something to think about on your next trip to the salad bar. All of a sudden, the deep-fried county fair food (previous post) don't sound so bad after all. Krispy Kreme chicken sandwich, anyone?

No oil shortage...

...at the L.A. County Fair.

The hungry and the curious follow the greasy, but alluring, scent of batter frying in hot oil to Charlie Boghosian's stand at the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona.

When they arrive, the menu stops them in their tracks: deep-fried Twinkies, deep-friend Oreos, deep-fried avocados, deep-fried pickles, deep-fried olives and more.

Holy deep-fried coronary, Batman!

Go read. You don't wanta miss the Krispy Kreme chicken sandwich!

The tidal wave heading straight for the hall of mirrors

Today's 'must read'* from David Sirota:

There are times every now and again where you just have to step back and behold the absurdity of it all. You have to step back from the day-to-day trench wars and just marvel at how entrenched power really is in this, the country where we still cling to Horatio Alger fables or "anyone can grow up to be president" myths. What I find particularly fascinating is the intricacy and careful calibration of the propaganda system that holds this whole structure up. Like a hall of mirrors, our political debate is, in every way, designed to perpetuate the status quo. But no hall of mirrors can withstand the impact of a big enough tidal wave, which is why those inside the hall are freaking out.

What you see here, folks, is that all of it - the elections, the public policies, the future of the country - is one big joke to the people in power, and they are willing to lie, cheat and distort anything to protect the integrity of that joke they are so happily enjoying. They don't want anyone asking questions of them. They don't want anyone thinking they have a right to use democracy to change things. They are fat and happy and putting the pedal to the metal in their sleek sports car on the great American highway overpass - and anyone who tries to slow them down, run them off the road or make them just glance at the blight below gets the big, road-raged middle finger.

When I get up everyday at 5:30am to start working, it is still dark out. I read through the clips and digest the daily does (G's note: He must have dictated that. I think he means 'doz' as in 'dozen') of ever-more raw hatred coming from our nation's capital and directed at the majority of Americans. Then I try to have some breakfast without feeling totally demoralized. But as I look out on the darkness outside, I always remind myself of the famous parable: "It is always darkest before the dawn." Win or lose, November 7th isn't going to change everything. But win or lose, it's clear that things are already changing. The rising anger coming from the halls of power are a reflection of the establishment's deep understanding that change is coming. The screams from the angry pundits and the desperate politicians and the paying-to-play lobbyists are like the early warning sirens at a beach. And just over the horizon, they see that tidal wave coming.

In between those two quotes is a grand description of how the wheels are starting to come off the whole Repuglican criminal enterprise. The Repugs' reaction to seeing the writing on the wall signifying their coming demise reminds me of an old Marine Corps saying:

When in danger
Or in doubt,
Run in circles,
Scream and shout.

Hopefully, some of 'em will be able to "run in circles, scream and shout" for an hour every day in a nice concrete exercise yard. Heh.

* 'Must read' sounds kinda authoritarian. Please consider it shorthand for 'if you read this you'll be a better, more well-informed person who will become even more of a credit to the human race'.

George W. Bush and the inner punk

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Generally speaking, the more people tell you how tough they are, the harder they're working to convince themselves. George W. Bush is no exception. The president's authoritarian impulses, on display during an amazingly petulant Rose Garden press conference, so clearly derive from his own fundamental weakness of mind and character that it's become increasingly embarrassing to watch him perform. The more strenuously he struggles to hide his inner punk, the more clearly it emerges. Consider his childish response to NBC News' David Gregory's question about the administration's pre-election efforts to legalize torture. Bush's testy attitude toward the tall newsman he calls "Stretch" goes back a long way. After Gregory, covering a joint news conference in Paris in 2002, asked President Jacques Chirac a question in French, Bush sneered, "The guy memorizes four words and he plays like he's intercontinental." Last week he mockingly told Gregory, "You're looking beautiful, Dave."

There's no 'inner punk' to it. Bush is a punk. Period.

Please read the rest.

Suzanne Smith Update

I posted on the plight of Suzanne Smith a few days ago. A fast recap:

Suzanne Swift is a veteran of the Iraq war who is now held in custody at Fort Lewis, Washington. Swift had completed a tour of duty in Iraq, where she was sexually harassed and assaulted at the hands of three of her commanding officers - continuing over the course of her entire deployment. Her efforts to report her treatment were met with disrespect and dismissed. Finally, Swift suffered a breakdown due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and went absent without leave. She was apprehended in Eugene, Oregon, in June 2006, and instead of seeing her rapists investigated, Swift herself is facing court martial and prison time.

Ms. Smith has now been in the stockade 103 days awaiting court-martial. Sara Rich reports:

First about Suzanne. Her mental health is declining. She has had two write-ups (counselings/official reprimands) in the past few weeks for being late in the mornings for formation. She is having a hard time waking up because her anxiety and depression are getting so bad. She is having trouble sleeping and bad dreams when she does sleep, so waking up early is just brutal for her. She is still doing office work, filing police reports. She is being allowed to come to Eugene every other week to meet with Dr. Schwartz, her psychologist. She has seen him only 6 times in the past 101 days. It is really hard for her to go back to Ft. Lewis and it breaks my heart every time she leaves, because I know she is beyond miserable up there and being re-traumatized by them daily. With the increasing media attention, Suzanne has been getting more and more silent, yet solid, support from other active women in the military. This gives us great hope that we are helping effect change for them, as well as validating women veteran' experiences and working to create new hope for the future safety of young women who hope to serve their country without fear of harassment and abuse someday.

Please continue to make calls and write letters on Suzanne's behalf. There are easy forms and all the numbers and addresses on the web site. It is very easy to use. Also, please feel free to post or forward this email to other sites/lists. I want to spread the word so we can increase the numbers of supporters for Suzanne. Thank you!!!

Most of all please visualize Suzanne's case being resolved with integrity, and justice being served. Suzanne deserves a timely resolution to this nightmare that they have created for her and many other women in the military.

Please go see Free Suzanne. Their motto is "Stop 'Command Rape' ". Do whatever you can.

The officers who sexually abused this soldier and drove her over the hill to escape need to be stripped of their rank, cashiered from OUR military, and tossed in the brig with the enlisted criminals.

Ms. Smith needs to have her desertion charge dismissed and her rights as a Veteran carved in stone so she can get help from the VA. She's going to need it for a long time.

Ms. Smith is a victim of Bush's Criminal War just as surely as if she had got blown up by an IED.

Must.Catch.Breath...BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

I say it all the time. The Left has all the funny,artistic,creative people. You can't be creative and sharp with a giant stick up your ass and a chip the size of Texas on your shoulder. The best writers tend to be lefties, the funniest smartasses too. And so(soft drumroll please)....

Ladies and Gentlemen,I present to you.....

The Adventures of Dr. Zero and The Pink Petulance

Baseball

Love it or hate it, Autumn in New York is awesome when both the Mets and Yankees clinch their divisions. You think there's partisanship is Congress? Hang around in NY for the next month. Hopefully my Mets (Been a fan for 40 years) won't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (Been a fan for 40 years). The buzz of a Subway Series is already in the air.

And just an aside: Call me a cynical, jaded New Yorker but I still hold my breath as I watch the space shuttle land. Fucking awesome. Now I'm dizzy ...

Song parodies

It's one of our favorite pastimes at the shop (though I wouldn't reprint any of them here for taste's sake). Well the CultureGhost has a great one this morning, using one of my favorite songs and mocking one of our biggest assholes.

Pauly asks

Which one would you vote for?

The way my mind works ...

Leave me alone, you feminists, but I was just thinking. Do ya think Bill got a little from Laura? And wouldn't that be a great way to stick it to the Chimp? Okay, now I'll switch back to 'enlightened male mode'.

Daily Dave

Blondie's taking it today.

Quote of the Day

Shakes:

No, Mr. Chavez-Bush isn't the devil. I've seen the devil's work. He's competent.

Maybe it's just me...

...but have you noticed lately that Ahmadinejad is sounding more sane and calm, while Bush is sounding less sane and more whiny, if such a thing is poossible?

Maybe they swapped their meds. Or their pharmacist has a sense of humor.

CA House race no race at all

Wall Street Journal

MONTEREY, Calif. -- It's a red-hot election year, with control of Congress at stake, and this political reporter has come to the state with a whopping 53 of the 435 U.S. House seats. That's one-eighth of the congressional total and 21 more seats than the next biggest state, Texas. So why do the seagulls over Monterey Bay seem to be screaming in reproach?

Because it's less than eight weeks until Election Day Nov. 7, and not a single one of those 53 congressional contests is competitive enough to merit a busy correspondent's attention.

In a year of anti-Republican and anti-incumbent fever, that fact stands as a testament to the completeness of California's bipartisan gerrymandering. The mapping of political lines for partisan advantage after each decennial census may have originated back east with Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry 194 years ago, but it has been perfected here on the West Coast.

Also on that long-shot list is the suburban Sacramento district represented for 16 years by Rep. John Doolittle; he and his wife have been implicated in the scandal involving convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. This week the Sacramento Bee newspaper endorsed Democratic challenger Charlie Brown, a former Air Force pilot in Vietnam and the first Persian Gulf war, saying, "Doolittle is emblematic of what's wrong in Washington." It takes a big scandal to turn a safe seat like Mr. Doolittle's into one the opposition party can seize, but often even that isn't enough -- as Republicans' retention of the former Cunningham seat shows.

Last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called on voters to approve an initiative that would leave the redistricting of state and federal districts to a nonpartisan commission of retired judges. Mr. Panetta, who supported the proposal, says the Governator told him that rarely do the state legislative leaders of both parties come to his office at the same time, but on this one "they walked in together and said, 'You cannot put this initiative forward.'" Mr. Schwarzenegger told Mr. Panetta, "When that happened, I knew it was the right thing to do."

But the ballot initiative, like redistricting itself, was "the one area where bipartisanship prevailed -- both Republicans and Democrats opposed it," Mr. Panetta recalls. A bipartisan bankroll financed the media campaign against the initiative, and it was easily defeated. Which helps explain why a national reporter visiting here now is watching seagulls instead of candidates.

The Democratic seats are safe, too, but what it all means is that any real change has been engineered out by both sides. It does show, however, that bi-partisan cooperation is possible, if only to protect each other's jobs. It really sucks.

If politicians would put that much effort into actually working for their employers, and by that I mean the ones who voted for them instead of the ones who give them money and tell them what to do, the nation would be in a lot better shape. Fat chance.

Before you enlist

This is the best all-purpose video (14:31) I've seen about what's been done to and by our military, and what it's become, and why no one should want to go at this time.

The military did pretty much the same chickenshit stuff back in my day, but the difference is that while the Vietnam War was bad, it wasn't anywhere near as illegitimate as this Iraq clusterfuck.

Oooh Baby! Clear my brush!

I just thought this might appeal to your prurient interest. From Sideways Mencken:

Things are getting bad for President Bush. Even Peggy Noonan seems to be having her doubts. For the uninitiated, Peggy Noonan's spent the last six years responding to every Bush appearance by rolling over, waving her paws in the air and wetting herself in an orgy of submissiveness.

Nice way to try and spin your slavish devotion, Peg. It's all about his shiver-my-loins "determination." Sweetie, Bush is "determined" in much the same way that a person in a persistent vegetative state is "determined." Lack of thought, lack of analysis, lack of adaptation, that's not determination so much as a flatline on the old EEG.

"Burn your brand into me," Peggy said huskily, drawing him close. "I'm yours, mark me with your hot brand." The rough leather of his chaps against her naked thighs made her insides churn. She pressed her mouth to his ear and in a fierce, urgent whisper said, "Clear my brush. Clear my brush now."

Gee, I hope he doesn't use a chainsaw! Then again...

Noonan:

What they increasingly sense is that he's one thing or the other. And this is not a pleasant thing to sense. The stakes are so high. If you woke most Americans up at 3:00 in the morning and said, "Tell me, looking back, what would you have liked in an American president after 9/11?" most of them would answer, "I was just hoping for a good man who did moderately good things." Who caught Osama, cleaned out Afghanistan, made it proof of the possibility of change and of the price to be paid by those who choose terror as a tactic. Not this historical drama queen, this good witch or bad.

Peggy Noonan just called Bush a drama queen, folks. He's toast!

Go read the rest.

Why Bob Ney Needs To Be Punished,Besides Jail

I've got an idea,one that should be applied to every dirty,rotten,greedy,vain,criminal,disgusting politician who does nothing to help his or her constituency.

Once the jail time is over and done,there should be a car waiting to pick up the newly freed former politician. The car will then take them to the poorest part of their former district,call attention to them,and then leave them with 10 dollars in cash and nothing more. They then have to figure out how to live,in that area(they'll be tracked by some sort of GPS type gizmo)with the people they were supposed to be representing, for no less than 5 yrs. Let's call it The Fresh Start Plan For Criminal Politicians.

For Bob Ney(R-Nefarious Piece of Crap),I do believe this drop off location would be the area where my grandparents got married, my parents grew up,where I was born,and where my daughter and grandbabies live now. Oh,and as Ney enters The Fresh Start Plan,I get to snatch that ridiculous toupee off his head before he's dropped off to start the program.

That place where I was born used to be lovely farm country and stunningly beautiful forests(alot of the forest is still there,thank heavens),though the process of industrialization had begun before I was born. But family farms were still running,and industry had provided lots of jobs without being totally intrusive. Very few family farms remain today,the last of the larger ones went under in the 1980's,as the auto and steel industries also began to go to rust.

As industry moved in,and more and more people were dependant on that for income,people also moved away from "old fashioned"things like huge single family victory garden holdovers(my grandparents and many of their neighbors were children during the Depression,and vowed never to not have access to food again),root cellars,home preservation of food,neighborhood food exchanges("I'll trade you some of my potatoes,corn and tomatoes for part of one of your cows when you make meat out of them") and community co-operation.

When all those big industries finally abandoned the area(a drawn out,rather painful process)families and the small towns where they live were completely devastated.People who had pretty much always had decent(mostly union) blue collar jobs had NOTHING once those jobs left. And being at least a one to two hour drive from a major city meant being stuck in a place far away from any decent job prospects. A few of the factories are still around and running on the cheap,mostly til the remaining older workers are gone,and then those places will be nothing more than empty buildings sitting on parking lots with tall weeds breaking thru the concrete,joining the other abandoned factories from companies like Goodyear,Mead Paper,and something called Carborundum(which killed people from crap in the air,industrial diamond dust to be precise). And we won't even talk about the toxic shit dumps some of these places left behind that are just sitting there today,unattended. Goodyear dumped benzine there(I was also in a fire at that plant,where open containers of benzine were being used near a heat source,part of why I got laid off permanently.How no one got hurt or killed that day is nothing short of amazing),I saw it happen,so heaven only knows what else sits on just that site.

I left my birthplace for a shot at a better job when my job at the Goodyear factory ended,I was 21.I tried moving to a bigger city an hour away,working retail management,which sucked,I couldn't live and support myself,let alone raise a baby that would soon be a reality, on that kind of money.I decided to follow my parents to GA,stay with them for awhile(a nightmare) and start over. That Goodyear plant sits empty over 25 yrs later,though I hear that the front offices are being used for some sort of menial community service program and the occasional parenting class.

The generation after mine,today in their 20's,live in abject poverty.Many have never held more than a minimum wage job,if that.A whole generation,who are now having babies of their own,who have never worked and have no hope of working and no means to leave. Meth has moved in and taken a tremendous toll,and to be frank,all there is for young people to do is party and fuck.Or get into trouble. There's nothing but a Super WalMart(of course,which shut down damned near any remaining local businesses except the bars),a rinky dink Blockbuster,a few fast food places,bars and liquor stores,a few churches,a simply shameful school system,and a teen pregnancy epidemic. Think Appalachia,which isn't too far a drive from my birthplace. Hope and Opportunity is a rare commodity in this place,and political and business interests are directly responsible for that.

But meanwhile,back at the ranch,Bob Ney never felt a thing or visited the area even once that I know of. I imagine the only politicians there are local,and the little cabal of Republican operatives that control the election process(my daughter and her friends,poor white people,all had issues with voting in 2004,including intimidation).

It's more than just the bribes,or the gifts or the money grubbing greed that needs to be punished. Political corruption is a direct cause of human suffering. Callous disregard for the people you are supposed to be representing should be considered treason,in my not so very kind opinion.

30%-ers

Our pal Lambert:

Whenever I want to baseline the country's Bad Craziness, I check out the Rapture Index, your "prophetic speedometer of end-time activity":