"Murder Obama" Graffitti in P'Cola "No Credible Threat", Sign of Times

When great change is about to roll over, the roaches crawl out. In flaming red (neck) Pensacola, as in other places (where even more abominable acts have been committed) - such as yesterday's busted Neo-Nazi assassination plot, more racist, violence-edged action reared its ugly head. This time, a CSX (train) bridge in Pensacola, Florida was spray-paintedwith "MURDER OBAMA" grafitti - and quickly painted over on Monday evening.

It was linked in spirit, if not in actual connections, to the skinhead plot to kill Barack Obama - a cameraderie of the cockroach? no, that's unfair to cockroaches - in a kind of union of hate-mongers and racists. Is that all the John McCain has left? Not exactly, but...

All the lies and rumors do affect and influence the minds of the ignorant. Just check out the comments to the above-linked extremely brief article. But rebuttals to the ignorant are there in the same comments, showing that for every redneck, there's an equal and opposite blueneck. Or, if the polls mean anything, about ten equal and opposite bluenecks.

Fortunately, the all-wise Pensacola Police Department's Chip Simmons says

"We don't deem it as a credible threat to a presidential candidate," Simmons said. "We will forward the information to the Secret Service."

And now some of my registered-independent family members are being bombarded by non-McCain endorsed lies, published in dark blacks and browns, with sinister threats associated with Obama:
"He'll take your money away and spread it around" - "He's gonna take your guns away" - "He's gonna cut-n-run in Iraq" - "He's got bad friends..." - with pictures of Ayers, Wright, and, in a featured pamphlet all by himself, Tony Rezko, who is pictured as doing a quid-pro-quo for Obama, presumably to counter the Ted Stevens thing. But at least in this neck of the woods, it's not swaying anyone but those whose conspiracy theories run in the evangelical vein, those who feel that Sarah Palin was "chosen by God to save America", and who believe Obama is Muslim and about to take over America and give it to "Islam" - whatever, wherever and whoever that may be. All they need to know is Palin says "we're" in "America" and "they" are in that "liberal Islamic evil empire" that is definitely out of the loop when it comes to The Rapture.

And if these are his "constituents", with many thinking Republicans jumping ship, what does that say about an America he would supposedly "lead"? It would be a fringe, ignorant, fearful, emotionally-volatile, violence-prone, frozen-in-time nation that makes the 1984 "nation" look at least civil. If the scare tactics aren't working with McCain's bid for highest office, they are working to incite those at the lowest level. Gives even right-wing thinkers pause as to where he would "lead" the country.

Mutiny on the McCain Express: Palinites Form "Insurgency" Within Campaign

This from Huffpo:

Politico's Ben Smith reports on the internal tensions that are roiling the McCain campaign, with many Palin allies voicing their unhappiness at how the campaign has been run. According to Smith, there are now "stirrings of a Palin insurgency."

This from Politico:

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image -- even as others in McCain's camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain's decline.

"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.[...]

Don't tell me even Palin isn't all that thrilled with McCain at this point?

Palin Palling Around With "Terrorists", Too???

This guilt by association thing has gotten out of hand, with Sarah Palin lambasting Barack Obama for his supposed "association" with Bill Ayers, who was a Weatherman radical in the '60's when Obama was 8 years old. Now Palin, too, can enjoy her own "guilt by association"! CNN's Rick Sanchez, much to the chagrin and angst of the McCain campaign, brought out Palin's strong ties to the Alaska Independence Party, which advocates ... seceding from the Union! Yes, you got it - Sarah's been palling around with guys who hate the United States so much they want to secede from it, cut ties, become a separate nation of Alaska. Unionists, anyone?

All 3 videos are here - one of the CNN show video, one of Sarah Palin addressing the A.I.P., and one of its founder, Joe Vogler, founder of the A.I.P.

Full report in Salon is here...

Mark Chryson, 51, former chairman of the Alaska Independence Party, surprised Salon reporters when

he pulled a 9-millimeter Makarov PM pistol -- once the standard-issue sidearm for Soviet cops -- out of his glove compartment. "I've got enough weaponry to raise a small army in my basement," he said, clutching the gun in his palm. "Then again, so do most Alaskans." But Chryson added a message of reassurance to residents of that faraway place some Alaskans call "the 48." "We want to go our separate ways," he said, "but we are not going to kill you."

Take a good look. This is the guy who helped Sarah Palin get to where he is today.

Though Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin's campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory.

Secessionist movements in the deep South?? Is this what they mean by the "South Will Rise Again"? Against whom??? Well, it doesn't stop there.

Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution's language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring. She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as "Black Helicopter Steve," to an empty Wasilla City Council seat. "Every time I showed up her door was open," said Chryson. "And that policy continued when she became governor."

"Anti-government militias"??? Doesn't that constitute right-wing terrorism? Remember Oklahoma City and Tim McVeigh... it was called "domestic terrorism"... Seems that Sarah Palin not only "pals around" with people who could be considered "terrorists", but helps to promote their policies, ideologies, and pet projects or fight their pet peeves, as the case may be. This is a far stronger "connection" than the hazy, sleazily-made "connection" they force-feed on the public of Obama and Ayers.

So what about Joe Vogler, the Godfather of the AIP? Godfather? No, he was the Original "Maverick"!

The AIP was born of the vision of "Old Joe" Vogler, a hard-bitten former gold miner who hated the government of the United States almost as much as he hated wolves and environmentalists. His resentment peaked during the early 1970s when the federal government began installing Alaska's oil and gas pipeline. Fueled by raw rage -- "The United States has made a colony of Alaska," he told author John McPhee in 1977 -- Vogler declared a maverick candidacy for the governorship in 1982. Though he lost, Old Joe became a force to be reckoned with, as well as a constant source of amusement for Alaska's political class. During a gubernatorial debate in 1982, Vogler proposed using nuclear weapons to obliterate the glaciers blocking roadways to Juneau. "There's gold under there!" he exclaimed.

Oh no! Don't tell me Sarah Palin "pals around" with folks who hate America! Where does that put "Country First"? I guess she agreed to go with McCain for the chance at Big Power ... a pretty big draw, I might add. But if she's gonna get nasty about Obama's alleged associations, we have the full right, and in fact, responsibility, to get real, real close and have a critical look at her associations, too. And they don't look all that, shall we say, patriotic, or even anti-terrorist. Oh, and speaking of terrorists or alleged terrorists, how about this?

With sponsorship from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Vogler was scheduled to present his case for Alaskan secession before the United Nations General Assembly in the late spring of 1993. But before he could, Old Joe's long, strange political career ended tragically that May when he was murdered by a fellow secessionist.

Yeah, it wasn't a threat. It was a damn serious thing, this secessionist thing. This guy went international to leave the United States, literally, and become another separate nation of Alaska. And it's his party that continues to haunt our stone-throwing, accusing, not-so-innocent-herself Sarah Palin.

Let the voter beware.

McCain Anti-American? His Volunteers Taught to Smear Obama with Terrorism

McCain is no "uniter" and when it comes to incitement to violence, he's not an innocent bystander - he's fanning the flames. Maybe this is already out there. But to no surprise to many, it's official: Huffpo's Jeffrey Feldman reports:

According to Time, McCain campaign staffers in Virginia are teaching volunteers to see Barack Obama as having terrorist 'friends,' and then providing these volunteers with arguments for persuading voters that Sen. Obama, like Osama Bin Laden, shares responsibility for bombings of the Pentagon.

The report from inside the McCain campaign brings to light an alarming fact: while McCain tells his supporters publicly to refrain from violent rhetoric, he continues to teach his volunteers rhetoric designed to elicit violent responses.

Is that the sort of responsible leadership we need in these critical times? Or does it actually break up the "union"?

Karen Tumulty of Time, reports from inside McCain's campaign training center in Virginia that Virginia's state GOP Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick is leading training sessions designed to create a view of Obama as a terrorist. No, no, it's true:

With so much at stake, and time running short, Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points -- for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary."

Which view of the world was augmented by more ignorance:

"And he won't salute the flag," one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, "We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born."

By actually training volunteers to lie in the most vicious and outrageous way - doesn't this merit cries of "smear campaign" or a suit for libel? - McCain and his campaign are proving themselves wildly unfit for public office, let along the Office of the Presidency.

It is precisely this kind of fear-mongering and name-calling and wild and callous preference for violent opposition that made Bush-Cheney the complete disaster that their administration is, and brought our country to the virtual standstill it is currently in, where the rich are richer, the poor are poorer, and most of those mindlessly repeating the Big Brother-loved rhetoric are actually among the victims of the very mentality they enthusiastically embrace.

The report from inside the McCain campaign is disturbing on several levels. While McCain has begun chiding his supporters at public rallies for using violent rhetoric, his campaign has taken the opposite tack behind closed doors. Despite the public image of a campaign not responsible for the violent outbursts of a few followers, the Time report reveals a ground operation actually training its volunteers to elicit violent responses in voters--specifically by making false claims about Barack Obama's connection to terrorist attacks on U.S. military buildings.

By connecting Obama to the 9/11 terrorists in the worst, most stupid and conniving, lying way, McCain and his campaign are directly responsible for calls for violence against Obama, and in turn, violence against those who support him, and in turn, against other Americans. McCain is not a Presidential candidate in such a case. In this desperate turn for his campaign, he becomes a leader inciting civil war and in the spirit of secessionist-leaning Sarah Palin, inciting the very destruction of the dream and reality we call one nation, America. Far from patriotic, his desperation has certainly put "Country Last".

McCain campaign apologizes to ousted reporter: End of Story? Hardly...

In an attempt to quell the controversy over McCain's ousting of Stephen Pricethe sole black reporter at a rally in Tallahassee, especially after Keith Olberman's coverage, the McCain campaign apologized to Stephen Price in a phone call. Here's one version:

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers called Price on Tuesday evening and apologized on behalf of the campaign.

Rogers said "We feel terrible about it," according to Price.

"I accept the apology," Price said. "I definitely wish I was never singled out. I came up there to do a story. That's all I wanted to do is write a story."

Rogers told Price that McCain would call him in the next few days.

OK, so this is supposed to be the end of the story, right? Especially since John McCain HIMSELF would "call him in the next few days." And what could Mr. Price do except graciously accept this direct apology?

And McCain, of course, is giving himself time before making that call. Presumably, to see how it blows up. As expressed here,

I would think he could have squeezed in a phone call by now — five days and counting later — but I guess it takes a story being spotlighted on the national cable news shows before it begins to sink in on Gramps.

And anyway, McCain’s been so busy. We’ve seen him cavorting with the bikers at their rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, and egging his wife on to compete in the topless biker babe contest. Who has three minutes for a phone call?

But the story won't go away. The questions have not been answered, or even addressed. It's just "sorry", "forgive & forget", without the explanation, without acknowledging even sorry for what exactly...

Is it "sorry" for being racist? Is it "sorry" for giving the appearance of being racist? Is it "sorry" for adding another "incident" to the list of suspicious-looking racial-bias indicators in the McCain camp? Is it "sorry" for this incident becoming a possible drag on the McCain campaign? Is it "sorry" - "now please go away"? Is it "sorry from the bottom of my heart" - ("damn incompetent staff")?? Is it simply "sorry we kicked you out for no good reason" ... "inadvertently"? "by mistake"?

Was there a policy of separating "local" from "national" reporters? NO. Was there some kind of security threat? NO. Did Mr. Price present proper credentials? YES. So what's up with that? If it's not racial profiling, JUST TELL US what it IS.
Then did they issue a similar apology to the mysterious unnamed "other reporter" who was also kicked out when she defended Mr. Price? And then what, pray tell, are they sorry for in that case? Sorry our inept operatives kicked off any possible whistle-blowers/troublemakers? Sorry the public has to be an eyewitness to our inept operatives?

The point and bottom line is: there IS no explanation. There WAS no reason given. It was an abbreviation. A full stop. A one-word, one-thought period, they hope, at the end of an awkward, but revealing, sentence. A sentence that suggests "we represent the party of the Great White Hope, the party of Old Values where patriotism is embodied in a flag decal/pin, and where familiar WASP faces will always be sitting on the seats of power." Did they apologize for that suggestion? To whom?

McCain needs to explain himself to the American public. The story, the bigger story behind this incident, just won't go away.

Sole Black Reporter Booted from McCain Event

Tallahassee Democrat senior writer Stephen Price was singled out and asked to leave the area reserved for media at a rally for John McCain in Panama City, Florida, on Friday. He had showed his media credentials and employee i.d. in order to enter the area when a member of McCain's security detail asked him to leave.

"I explained I was with the state press, but the Secret Service man said that didn't matter and that I would have to go," Price said.

When another reporter asked why Price was being removed, she too was led out of the area. Other state reporters remained.

Price was the only black reporter among those surrounding McCain's bus ... was he being "profiled"?

Tallahassee Democrat Executive Editor Bob Gabordi said the incident was unwarranted.

"We're deeply concerned and disturbed that our reporter — of all of those in that area — was asked to move," Gabordi said. "My understanding is that Stephen was the only reporter approached and asked to leave the area, and the only reporter in that area who is black. Another reporter who stood up for Stephen was then asked to leave."

Jonathan Block of the McCain campaign, who was not there at the time of the incident, expressed regret, but stated,

"I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that race had nothing to do with it."

Block said the area where Price was standing was restricted to members of the traveling national press corps that accompanies McCain on the campaign trail.

Wow. Really. There's this story line going around that McCain loves to be "unscripted" and was always wandering into unprepared situations, giving the impression of "getting down to the people." Why was the black man singled out? And then why was the other reporter ousted for defending him? Why couldn't they simply tell them right then and there that this area is restricted to press that travels with McCain, if that was, in fact, true???

I'm sure McCain really needs this sort of stuff to keep those "swing voters" wondering. First, he backs a bill in Arizona that would wipe out affirmative action as "quotas", a "reverse racism"-style proposition, to coddle the right-wing racist White First bloc. Then he accuses Obama of racism for mentioning in passing something that could be construed to mean Obama is black. And if McCain infers that he is older, we're supposed to accuse him of "age-ism", right? Now, his security detail is weeding out "suspects"??

And this isn't the first weird incident with McCain's security. Here you can check out how they kicked a librarian out of a public rally for holding a McCain=Bush sign, and charged her with trespassing.

The event, at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, was billed as 'open to the public.' Yet Carole Kreck, a 61-year-old librarian carrying a 'McCain=Bush' sign, was taken away by police [on orders from McCain's security detail] for trespassing. A police officer told Kreck:
'You have two choices. You can keep your sign here and receive a ticket for trespassing, or you can remove the sign and stay in line and attend this town hall meeting.'
Kreck received a ticket for trespassing and her court date is July 23.

Security trumps free speech. Security trumps reporters' access to a candidate. Dissent and being a person of color seem to always land in the world of "security risk". One of the Republicans' biggest ticket issues is "increase Security." It plays to fear. It plays to the military. But, as this incident is a small but notable example, it doesn't play to our higher goals of fairness, openness, and actual freedom (not rhetorical "freedom" as in "freedom fries"). For McCain, it's a pattern he can't break free from. For the rest of us, it's an election we must weigh in on, in historic numbers, for the other, security-by-freedom, not security-vs-freedom, side.