From the Jed Reportwe learn that McCain spoke to a 43% full town hall meeting (700 showed out of 1,600 expected).

What if McCain held a town hall and nobody came?

According to a video report posted by Scranton, Pennsylvania’s Times-Leader, John McCain’s town hall event in Wilkes-Barre earlier today featured an underwhelming turnout — more than half the seats were empty. About seven hundred folks showed up — a decent sized crowd, perhaps, but it left nine hundred seats empty.

Ouch!!

Stories like this are going to make it tough for McCain to raise money. Infact, I’m working on a post about how high profile Delaware Republicans have become tightwads when it comes to McCain (who wants to throw away good money on a nag – right?).

Now for the comment rescue, and I don’t have the exact quote, by Al Mascitti figures that we’ve had an uptick in our visitors from Wingnutia becuase school is out and these guys can’t find gainful employment.

Maybe. My theory is that they are aware (on some gut level) that McCain sucks and is going to get stomped and they are just trying to work through some angst about that and about having been proven wrong about eveything over the past 8 years.

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Appoquinimink Hundred.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker, could the Parlimentarian please remind the delegation from Wingnutia, that “…but, but, but Bill Clinton…” is not a valid argument.

So ordered. Parliamentarian..?

The body is reminded that saying “…but, but, but Bill Clinton…” is not the same as making a valid argument.

Thank you. Carry on.

HBO’s Generation Kill.

It’s about the first days and initial invasion of the Iraq War.

Here is an interesting blurb which kind of explains why the press has been so wrong about Bush and the GOP trashing of this country for so long.

Columnist Rober Novak just hit an old man with his car as we pick up the story…

“I didn’t know I hit him. … I feel terrible,” a shaken Novak told reporters from Politico and WJLA as he was returning to his car. “He’s not dead, that’s the main thing.” Novak said he was a block away from 18th and K streets Northwest, where the accident occurred, when a bicyclist stopped him and said he had hit someone. He said he was cited for failing to yield the right of way.

The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he witnessed the accident.

As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono said “a black Corvette convertible with top closed plows into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed into the windshield.”

You might think, what does this have to do with the press being wrong about George Bush?

Well here is the thing, Novak’s claim, “I didn’t know I hit him…” is so at odds with the first hand witnesses observation that, ” (Novak’s) Corvette convertible with top closed plows into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed into the windshield”  that Novak’s take on the event is either pure bullshit or he lives in an different reality in which hit and run vicitms are invisible.

Given the evidence it is impossible to argue that George Bush is not a war criminal. To do so simple marks you as a mindless partisan with a haughty disregard for the notion that there is such a thing as “objective truth.”

Happy Downing Street Day!

How in the tank for McCain is the traditional media? So in the tank that when McCain gave a flatly incorrect answer to a Katie Couric interview question (stating the Sunni awakening happened after the surge and not prior to the surge) that CBS edited out the inccorect answer!

Accordingly, Keith Olberman covered the CBS/McCain scandal in last night’s broadcast summarized by a kos diarist as follows:

CBS scrubbed a McCain interview.

1. McCain’s response didn’t survive the cutting room floor, but

2. Couric’s question did; and

3. CBS replaced McCain’s incorrect response with one he gave to another question.

If that’s what actually went down, I’m astonished. CBS has a lot of explaining to do.

I really have no idea how wingnuts can continue complain that we have a “liberal” media when we have proof like this, that CBS news accepts cleaning up and cheerleading for Republicans as part of its job.

Maybe it betrays a liberal bias to catch Republicans lying, cheating and screwing up?

Because I know what a muscle bear is baby! wooohoooo

Is a mormon VP going to hurt McCain?

WDEL reports that a man was killed while kayaking on the Brandywine River yesterday.  A rotted tree fell on him.   What the hell are the odds of that???   I love kayaking, but I only have the opportunity to do it down at my parents’ house in Bethany Beach.    I was planning on getting my own kayak and going out on the Brandywine, but now, with trees falling out of the sky, I don’t know about that. 

Today is Wednesday, July 23, 2008.   The deadline for candidates to file their intentions to run for office is Friday, July 25, 2008.   Two days away.  48 hours.  

From the News Journal:

Sussex County Democrats have just been stabbed in the back by their three council members, and they have little time to remove the knife.

The three Democrats who control the Sussex County Council dropped a political bombshell Tuesday, announcing their joint retirements in a move that could dramatically change the face of county politics.

Councilmen Dale Dukes of Laurel, Lynn Rogers of Milton and Finley Jones of Greenwood said they would not run for re-election in November, a mere four days [sic] ahead of the filing deadline.

Their decisions open the door for Republicans to take hold of the five-member council for the first time in two decades.

“They basically handed us the reins,” said Republican Judson Bennett, a candidate for Rogers’ seat. “Unless we self-destruct from within, I think we’ll have a good opportunity.”

Only one council member seems to have a legitimate reason for stepping down, as Councilman Rogers said he needed to focus his time and energy on taking care of his wife, who was severely injured in a May horse-riding accident.   That is perfectly understandable.   Indeed, Sussex Democrats have been expecting his retirement.  But the other two were surprising, and as far as I can tell, no mention of their possible retirement escaped the lips of Mr. Dukes and Mr. Jones at any point during the past year.   The only reasons they give is that they wanted to spend more time with their families.  That is all well and good, but if both were expecting or wanted to retire, they should have informed the Party long before hand so we could get good candidates to replace them.   Especially when we control the council on a 3-2 margin.   So that is a betrayal, and it is political malpractice at the same time.

Luckily, we do have some candidates that seem prepared to run.  In the Second District, replacing Jones, we have former Georgetown Mayor Mike Wyatt running.   Unfortunately Wyatt is coming off an electoral defeat this spring in his reelection bid for Mayor.   In the Third District, replacing Rogers, would be civic activist Joan Deaver, founder of Citizens for a Better Sussex.   We do not yet have a candidate for the first district.

No matter the horrible position the resignations put us in politically, this is an opportunity for better Democrats rather than more Democrats.  Joan Deaver is most definitely a better Democrat.  

Thank God.   I do not want my tax dollars going to a corrupt felons like Sherry Freebery or Tom Gordon. 

Council voted 11-1 against the proposal [giving Freeberry $3.7 million for her legal expenses], saying they agreed with a recommendation from a special consultant who determined that the county’s indemnification law is too narrowly drawn to require a reimbursement.

“When you look at the plain language of the provision, which is unlike Delaware corporate law, our provision is permissive,” said Councilman John Cartier, D-8th District.

“A lot of the charges constituted a pattern of a breach of the public trust.”

 

Freebery, the former Chief Administrative Officer of the County, and her boss, former County Executive Tom Gordon, were brought up on charges of “running the government as a criminal enterprise and misusing county resources for their personal and political gain.”   In a plea deal prior to trial, Freebery pleaded guilty to one felony count of making a false statement to a bank for failing to include on a mortgage application that she had a $2.3 million loan from du Pont heiress and developer Lisa Dean Moseley.   

I am not sure why Freebery needs the County to pay her bills.  Surely she can get another “loan” from a du Pont heiress.  

Here is the footage that I shot at the Lee announcement today.  Let me know what you think of the lead in, trailer and effects.  I am toying with the idea of sprucing up my video works and this is the first attempt.

Be sure to listen to the Castle story about Copeland and the bull.

Low quality youtube version:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnnhgFI0oNE[/youtube]

High-quality downloadable:

leeannounces2008