From the O’Reilly Factor, December 20, 2007 - On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet. Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves. And by the way, the mother, Lynne Spears, has reportedly already sold pictures of the upcoming baby of her 16-year-old for a million bucks. Incredible pinhead. My, my, my. I wonder what Bill-O has to say ...

Well, it is time for football season. The Dallas Cowboys opened its season against the Cleveland Browns. Both teams really have something to prove. While the Dallas Cowboys and the Cleveland Browns ended their season last year, by laying an egg. Dallas Cowboys took their opening drive and ran 10 plays. They traveled 80 yards. They ended the drive with a Marion Barber touchdown. The Cowboys defense that allowed a 16 play drive which took approximately 9 minutes, and ended in a Cleveland Browns touchdown. The Cowboys had the ball three more times in half and scored twice. Both scores were ...

This is one of my favorite Carlos Santana tunes - Blues of Salvador. ...

The Daily Show is one of the funniest shows ever. I’m not sure why. Many people have played with this format but Jon Stewart does it better than anyone else. ...

Man, I love the Daily Show. Can Karl Rove and Bill O’Rielly be 2-faced hypocrites? I think so. ...

Great show today. Dwight Mullen, professor of political science at UNC - Asheville, and I chat about the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention. The contrast was stark. Ideas verses No Ideas. ...

Brave New Films clearly shows us that FoxNews is using the same attacks on Barack Obama that they used on John Kerry in 2004. ...

I spoke with the Asheville Red Cross.  I asked what are we doing and what can we do to help. here’s the response (emphasis added is mine) - The American Red Cross deployed about 5600 disaster relief volunteers from all over the country to assist the evacuees affected by Hurricane Gustav. Fifteen of them are from Western North Carolina. Hundreds of these volunteers are being moved to Florida this weekend, as part of an estimated 2500 volunteers who will be needed for shelters, mass care and feeding there in the coming week. Other volunteers from WNC, along with Emergency Relief Vehicles ...

I’ll have much more to say about this as the day unfolds. This week I’ve been on call which doesn’t give me a lot of time to listen to politics or read about politics. ...

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com wrote (He is 100% correct): With last night’s cheerfully vicious speeches from Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, the Republicans did what they always do in order to win elections: they exploited raw cultural divides while mocking, belittling and demonizing Democratic leaders. Yet again, they delivered brutally effective and deeply personal blows to the Democratic presidential candidate grounded in the same manipulative and deceitful yet very potent themes they’ve been using for the last three decades. Ever since Ronald Reagan’s election, this is what the Republicans do every four years. They render issues irrelevant and convert campaigns ...

Tomorrow, I will chat with Dwight Mullen, UNCA professor of political science, on the Errington Thompson Show (streamed at www.880therevolution.com Saturday morning at 9 am EST). We will talk about the Democratic and Republican conventions. Joe Biden is correct. The Republicans didn’t talk about issues. They talked about America and how much more they love America. They talked about fighting as an outsider in spite of the fact that they controlled Congress for most of the last 8 years. They still control the White House and they are trying to convince us that they are the outsiders. Next ...

Really, what did you expect, Minnie Mouse? Governor Sarah Palin delivered the speech (full text) that everyone with half-a-brain expected. There were no surprises. She stood in the Xcel building and delivered the exact Republican Neoconservative attack speech that would make Karl Rove smile. We have seen this before whether it was Cheney, Condi or Dan Bartlett. The good news is Sarah Palin is only a new face delivering the same old half-truths and lies. From C&L: Interesting choice on her part to repeat rank falsehoods that have already been debunked ten times over. A sample: I suspended the ...

John McCain says he is a maverick. Yet instead of picking Joe Lieberman of Connecticut as his running mate, as he had wanted to do, he chose a candidate to satisfy the far right. Mr. McCain lacked the political courage to be his own man. Instead of a maverick, Senator McCain is a pack mule for the far right. You see him there above–Carrying the load… Waiting for the next command. Mr. McCain is not even “stubborn as a mule.” He just allows the right to strap that gay-baiting, book-banning, no sex ed, everybody for themselves load right on his back. Anything to win an election. Here is information about mules from the British ...

Completely and totally nauseating. I tried Pepto but that didn’t help. From WaPo: Obama voted “to cut off funding for our American troops on the battlefield.” –Joe Lieberman on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 in St. Paul, Minn. If Obama voted against funding the troops, so did Lieberman Joe Lieberman, the independent senator from Connecticut, alleged in his speech at the Republican National Convention that Sen. Barack Obama had voted to cut off funding for men and women in uniform. Rating: Barely True Lieberman issued the attack almost as an aside as he praised Sen. John McCain’s approach to the war in Iraq. “When others were silent ...

Democracy in America seems to be taking a holiday in Minnesota. It completely sickens me. I thought we had a constitution to protect us from stuff like this? Maybe I was wrong. ...

I haven’t had a change to do the background on this yet but a reader sent me a link which suggests that Sarah Palin helped her church get funding for a new youth center. Read for yourself. I have to get back to work. I’ll do a little bit more reading on this subject this afternoon. ...

Is the Republican Party running away from George Bush? The official excuse is that the hurricane has prevented the president from being at the convention. I’m having a hard time buying this excuse. How about the Republican Party and John McCain are running away from George W. Bush’s approval ratings? ...

President George W. Bush isn’t at the Republican Convention. Weird isn’t it? Anyway, Bush rallies the Republican faithful and pumps up John McCain while justifying the Surge. From WaPo: The Republican National Convention got back on track tonight with a procession of high-profile speeches designed to illuminate Sen. John McCain’s life and record of service, after getting knocked off schedule by Hurricane Gustav and off message by controversies surrounding the GOP’s vice presidential pick. In the most anticipated speech of the evening session, President Bush addressed the Xcel Energy Center crowd live via satellite from the White House, delivering a strong ...

A friend whom I like and admire wrote me: but for Democrats to smear someone for getting pregnant before marriage (which is the way the Republicans may spin it) is playing into their hands. I think they will try to turn it into a positive for the anti-choice crowd. It is a constant challenge for me — as much as I CAN’T STAND them — not to be as nasty as they are. Here’s what I have to say about that: Of course the Republicans and the out-of-the-ballpark-right-wing Christian dominionists are already spinning it that it would be a “smear” to point out ...

Was John McCain being rash or irresponsible when he picked Governor Sarah Palin? ...