A friend of mine recently sent me an e-mail showing how Ralph Nader cost Al gore the 2000 US Presidential election - because, all the people that voted for Nader (when, in fact, if they had wnated to could have just as easily voted for Gore) would have voted for Gore with Nader not running ... which might be an interesting mind game, BUT ....

I will not ever vote for Obama, nor will I vote for a corporate America endorsed candidate again.

The Republicans blame Ross Perot for Clinton's ascending to the office of POTUS in 1992, and they tried to taint his election, because he did not pick up half the popular vote.  But the ones that voted for Perot were not going to vote for Bush.  I think that is an easy assumption to make: that people who vote for 3rd party candidates were not going to vote for one of the main candidates in the general election because they were too disgusted with the choices.

But of course, if they are astute enough to reject the candidates proffered, they are also astute enough to understand that they MUST vote in the general elections for the sake of who will be holding local offices.  At the local level, we, the people, still hold some power - who will be on our school board (and whether or not they are proud of their school systems and the teachers who teach in them), who will be on the junior college board of trustees, who will be mayor, town council-folk, etc, etc, etc ... these races are by FAR more important than the national elections, where, we the people, have virtually no voice.

The assumption that, if those that had voted for Nader would have only voted for Gore instead, is very suspect.  They had Gore as an option, and opted out.  The REAL reason Bush won, was because the MAINSTREAM MEDIA, in particular, the New York Times and the Washington Post, got a tad bored with the ginormous lead Gore had in the polls leading up to the election, because they did not like Bill Clinton (because he was way smarter than they were), because they WANT the race to be interesting (close), because George W Bush had better snacks on his airplane, and also because he was more "down to earth" with them, because he actually PATTED THEM ON THE HEADS AND GAVE THEM COOL NICKNAMES (much as one treats ones beloved dogs), and how Al Gore was a serial liar (just like Clinton, whom, again, the press corps hated) who claimed that he

(1) invented the internet (in a two hour talk, what Gore actually said was that he sponsored legislation which enabled the funding that created the internet - which is fact is QUITE TRUE, and Gore is considered to be the legislative father of the internet;

(2) discovered the nuclear toxic waste at Love's Canal (false, and the high school class that Gore was speaking to when his comments were made was so incensed at the lies reported by their local paper that they wrote a letter to the editor correcting the lies, and telling the truth about what Gore had said

(3) worked on his family tobacco farm in the summers (which in fact, he did do)

(4) lived in a lap of luxury in a Washington DC hotel (his father DID have the family living in a DC hotel, because they spent a lot of time back home in TN working the farm, when Congress was not in session)

(5) claimed that Gore had to hire a political consultant to tell him to wear cowboy boots (because he didn't know who he really was; because he was uncomfortable in his own skin) - in fact, Gore had ALWAYS worn cowboy boots

6. claimed that the same female consultant who allegedly told him to wear cowboy boots also told him to wear earth toned suits, when, in fact, Gore had ALWAYS worn earth tone suits,
   (7) that his mother used to sing to him the "look for the union label song" as a baby - but the song was written years after he was a baby - Gore did make this assertion, as a joke, one day while speaking in front of a large union gathering

These stories were repeated over and over and over - especially the part about Gore being the same as Clinton, the same serial liar, etc, etc, etc.  I repeat, the man had a 20% lead in the public opinion polls about 10 months before the election, but, with the hard work of the MainStream Media - Dowd of the NYT, Chris Matthews was another - remember how Chris got all wobbly in the knees at the sight of the outline of GWB's loins in a fly boy's suit on the deck of that ship where they had the sign "Mission Accomplished?"   The Press Corp fell in love with Bush - JUST LIKE FRIGGIN' HIGH SCHOOL, and so biased the reporting of the election that they turned it, they created an image in the minds of the American people, they never investigated the stories about Bush, his drunkenness, his cocaine abuse, his AWOL from the military - it was "thou shalt not dump on the man who feeds us great oer douerves, and pats us on the head, and gives us cool nick names (just like one does a trained poodle)

People who vote for 3rd party candidates WERE NEVER GOING TO VOTE for either of the main streamers - that is quite clear - hell, people still write in "Mickey Mouse" for president.

The "What if" game is interesting, but we know this:  the supreme court, which ultimately elected Bush 5-4, vowed to stay on the bench for the entire first term of Bush's office.  To my knowledge, no one has yet written "the book" on the legtimacy of Supreme Court members who were appointed by an illegal government that was NOT voted into office by "the people."

The definitive studies about the voting FRAUD in Florida were printed by the Tallahassee newspaper, in fact, GORE WON FLORIDA!  And that does not even get into the 50,000+ black voters who were illegally disenfranchised by the outfit that culled the voting ranks and took people off the voting registers who "looked like illegal felons" but in fact WERE NOT FELONS.

Al Gore lacked the back bone to fight for the office he had won, and the Republicans sent their goons to Florida to harrass the vote counters.  There is a movie out about Jack Abrhamoff, and it is MUST SEE, it so well documents the mindset of "the young republican turks - Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Tom Delay, and these guys are SCARY, SCARY, SCARY, ignorant beyond words, unquestioning supporters of all of the right-wing demogogues taht the US is forever supporting and propping up around the world to hurl back the socialsts resistance BECAUSE the US cannot STAND the existence of a smoothly running government of elected socialists, because .. that might give the 'Murican peoples some ideas .... never a healthy thing when one embraces the staus quo, politically, culturally, academically, financially.

Here's an enormously important link - the story of "How We Got Here," by Bob Somersby, former grade school teacher (for 13 years) in the Baltimore Public School System, roommate of Al Gore at Yale, and presently a stand up comic working in the D.C. area, and, a very important blogger - his commentary on media bias, media ignorance, media ignorance of educational issues, corruption of the media and bias towards one candidate of the other (in 1960, the bias was for Kennedy - he was the "fair-haired child", in 1980, the bias was for Barry-O, again, the fair-haired child (although the drunken lesbian Maureen Dowd of the New York Times DID in fact coin the nick-name O-Bambi, laying labels on Democratic Males that suggest that they are "light in the loafers - faggots" and on the females, laying the labels that they are "masculine ball busters."  Dowd is also queen of the trivial, and spends MUCH of her columns commenting on the wardrobes worn by the candidates' wives.

Here's a link to Somersby's brilliant book: How He Got Here:

http://www.howhegotthere.blogspot.com/ 

Casino Jack (2010)

ATO Pictures

Kevin Spacey, center, as Jack Abramoff in “Casino Jack.”

Want a Deal on a Used Country?

By A. O. SCOTT

Published: December 16, 2010

For Kevin Spacey, a Reviled Lobbyist Is No Mere Villain

(December 16, 2010

In the first and best scene of George Hickenlooper’s “Casino Jack,”Jack Abramoff, played with furious relish by Kevin Spacey, delivers a ranting, self-justifying monologue to a men’s room mirror. (“I’m Jack Abramoff, and I work out every day!”)

It is a moment that recalls other movies, in particular Robert De Niro’sfinal soliloquy in “Raging Bull,”which itself quoted “On the Waterfront.”These echoes are only fitting, since the Abramoff on display throughout this interesting, wildly uneven film is obsessed with movies, reeling off catchphrases and off-the-cuff impersonations (“That was Dolph Lundgren, by the way, not Schwarzenegger”) in the middle of serious conversations. The point of that compulsive riffing, he says, is to “lighten the mood.”

But the mood of “Casino Jack” is a bit of a puzzle. Much of the time the jumpy, jaunty soundtrack music seems to be trying to elicit giggles and guffaws, even when what is happening on screen is not especially funny. The story, pulled from an almost impossibly rich historical record of scandal, ambition, double dealing and ideological grandstanding, is frantically busy, and the cast is too. Barry Pepper, as Abramoff’s business partner, Michael Scanlon, works his jaw and his brows with worrying ferocity, providing an antic counterpoint to Mr. Spacey’s ruthless, strutting cool.

Men in suits (and the occasional woman, notably Rachelle Lefevre as Scanlon’s fiancée, Emily Miller) bustle through the corridors of power, hunker down in private jets and leap from dark sedans, wielding cellphones, legal documents and other weapons in the Beltway arsenal. For variety there are also a few actual guns and a handful of gangsters, hookers and Indian chiefs sprinkled in among the politicos and influence peddlers.

The true tale of Jack Abramoff — lobbyist, restaurateur, Republican zealot and brazen swindler — has so many remarkable twists and colorful characters that it all but defeats Mr. Hickenlooper’s attempts to put it on screen in some intelligible form.

One of the great, appalling episodes of recent times, Mr. Abramoff’s journey from the College Republicans to the federal penitentiary (he was released this year) has already been the subject of a documentary, Alex Gibney’s “Casino Jack and the United States of Money.” It is easy enough to see what attracted Mr. Hickenlooper, whose earlier films include “Hearts of Darkness” (a documentary about the making of “Apocalypse Now”) and“Factory Girl” (a fact-based feature about the pop art demimonde of the 1960s), and who died in October at 47.

While Mr. Gibney’s outraged, prosecutorial film takes a systematic, muckraking approach, viewing Abramoff’s misdeeds as symptomatic of a culture of Republican corruption, Mr. Hickenlooper’s oddly apolitical caper film loses itself in the puzzle of its protagonist’s personality. In Mr. Spacey’s wily, aggressive performance Abramoff comes across as self-aggrandizing to the point of delusion, a man for whom commitment to the conservative cause, vanity and simple greed become harder and harder to tell apart.

An observant Jew and faithful family man (Kelly Preston plays his wife, Pam), Abramoff is also a bully and a huckster, bilking Indian tribes out of millions of dollars and trying to muscle his way into the offshore gambling business, all the while flaunting his connections to important Republicans and his growing celebrity in Washington. He is a case study in nutty hubris, tumbling toward ruin and tarnishing the reputations of his colleagues and fellow travelers along the way.

Many of these characters are well known and dutifully impersonated by actors who never quite manage to match the full, florid individuality of the real-life models. Tom DeLay(Spencer Garrett) seems more anxious and more unctuous than the man known on Capitol Hill as the Hammer. Karl Rove and Ralph Reed make appearances, as do Bob Ney, then a Republican member of the House from Ohio, and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, but they don’t make much of an impression.

Far more vivid — and perhaps more securely within the filmmaker’s and the audience’s comfort zone — are Jon Lovitz as Adam Kidan, a sleazy Virginia mattress salesman recruited by Abramoff as a frontman in a crooked casino deal and, for a few deliciously unsavory scenes, Maury Chaykin as an elephantine mobster called Big Tony.

The plot has so many moving parts — so many envelopes of money, dropped names, half-explained schemes and hasty flights — that it quickly becomes more frustrating than illuminating. A steadier narrative hand and a clearer satirical eye might have made the intrigue more intriguing and the humor more pointed. As it is, Abramoff is treated as a wild anomaly, a not-quite lovable, not-quite detestable rogue, while the system that spawned him and in which he thrived is spared serious (or anything more than mildly mocking) scrutiny.

“Casino Jack” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Obscene language, obscene corruption and a little skin, too.

CASINO JACK

Opens on Friday in New York and Los Angeles.

Directed by George Hickenlooper; written by Norman Snider; director of photography, Adam Swica; edited by William Steinkamp; production design by Matthew Davies; costumes by Debra Hanson; produced by Gary Howsam, Bill Marks and George Zakk; released by Art Takes Over. In Manhattan at the Angelika Film Center, Mercer and Houston Streets, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes.

WITH: Kevin Spacey (Jack Abramoff), Barry Pepper (Michael Scanlon), Kelly Preston (Pam Abramoff), Jon Lovitz (Adam Kidan), Rachelle Lefevre (Emily Miller), Maury Chaykin (Big Tony) and Spencer Garrett (Tom DeLay).

TYPICAL MAUREEN DOWD TRIPE - REMEMBER, THIS LADY HAS A TWICE A WEEK OP-ED COLUMN IN AMERICA'S "NEWSPAPER OF RECORD"

Liberties; The Boy Can't Help It

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: August 04, 1999

Pierce and Demi and Liam were there. And Quentin and Salman and Spike and Amber. I never actually saw any of them. I had to content myself with glimpses of Kevin Bacon's pouffy hair and Madonna's pouffy biceps.

Typical of Dowd, emasculating males, defeminizing Females - Bacouns' "pouffy hair" and MAdonna's "pouffy biceps" - BTW - she only does this with the so-called "LIBERAL" public figures; never with a CONSERVATIVE (and by LIBERAL, the press always means Democratic, and by conservative, it always means Republican, so that the words LIBERAL and CONSERVATIVE has been stripped of their meaning, and no one could possibly be aware that there have been Republicans LIBERAL on social issues, and Democrats CONSERVATIVE on such matters as gun control, abortion, etc, etc, etc.

Descend with me to the seventh circle of buzz, the ground zero of zing, the hub of hip, the Sodom of synergy. (Sex REALLY interests Dowd, and much the rest of her cohorot, the US Press Corpse) Beneath the Statue of Liberty the masses, the tired and unhumble, yearning to be chic, huddled at Tina Brown's Talk party. In the glow of Chinese lanterns, here was the perfect Gotham froth -- the maitre d' of the Four Seasons and the window dresser for Barneys and the publicist for Kevin Costner and the toupee for Andrew Stein.

Queen Latifah was at the microphone chanting, pausing only to wonder whether the Miramax chief and Talk sugar daddy Harvey Weinstein pronounced his name ''steen'' or ''stine.''

There was, of course, a rigid caste system. An elderly man in a wheelchair was turned back after he mistakenly rolled down the gangplank toward a ferryboat reserved for celebrities and nicknamed the ''star barge.''

''The man in the wheelchair does not belong here,'' hissed a Talk sherpa, banishing him to the hoi polloi ferry even as he unfastened the chain for Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller.

Tina Brown was glowing. She had aced her first test. Everybody was talking about Talk. (Though the cover, laid out so that George W. appears to be leering at Gwyneth Paltrow's squished cleavage while Hillary gazes up, away from the actress's bondage lingerie, is jarring.   (i.e., GWB is a real man's man, and likes to oggle squished cleavage and bondage lingerie - ooo, ooo, ooo, Georgie Progie, you are such a BAD boy!)

The First Lady unburdened herself in an interview with the adoring journalist Lucinda Franks, working for the adoring Mr. Weinstein. (Gwyneth, Tina and Hillary are the rough-hewn mogul's treasured troika of blond Miramax princesses.) Ms. Franks is married to Robert Morgenthau, the Manhattan District Attorney, who is Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's old rival.

Fans and foes of Mrs. Clinton were left reeling by her contention that the President's chronic philandering was caused by ''abuse'' he suffered as a little boy when his mother and grandmother battled over him (Note that Dowd makes this assertion, but does not bother to quote even on of those fans or foes who allegedly were left reeling - but, the meme, the Clintons are serial liars, is being propagated - classic Dowd, deaths by a 1,000 cuts).

In her book, Mr. Clinton's mother recalled the custody fight over Bill that erupted with her mother, after Virginia married the hard-partying Roger Clinton. At one point, grandma even burned ma's white leather jacket   (DOWD, SO fashion-conscous never lets us forget that the leather jacket Grandma burnt was , GASP - W H I T E .... a detail that adds nothing to the story..

In a political climate that cherishes dissension, (WAIT A MINUTE THERE - this is VERY revealing, Which political climate is it that "cherishes dissension" ... can a political climate cherish anything?  Does a political climate have feelings?  When you prick it does it bleed?  When you don't hire it do its children go to grade school hungry?  NO - the ones whoo CHERISH DISSENSION in "the political climate" are the reporters who follow this day, after, weary day, after weary day .. they want to keep it intersting, and thus they report "the HORSE RACE - who is leading in the fund raising, and the GOTCHA MOMENTS - and then throw in stuff to re-inforce their own chosen story lines - in election 2000, the story line that GORE was a serial liar (just like the clintons), that Bush was a guy you'd like to have a beer with, etc, etc, etc  there is such rare unanimity of revulsion at Mrs. Clinton's interview that she is now trying to slink away from it.

Everyone is fed up with the creepy dynamics of this warped marriage  "Everyone" is fed up with the creepy dynamics of this warped marriage?  Hell, to me it is a testimony to love and perseverance ... good God in heaven above, the Clintons are still married to each other! Not sure about what kind of family values those are, but Mitt nad Gnewt has bedded three wives each, so, when their marriage is not workin; out so well, they just toss the present bimbo off the gravy train - McCain, the same thing. We have lost all hope of getting any shred of authenticity from either Bill or Hillary -- unless it's the authenticity of the deluded (Because the Clintons are serial liars, the authenticity of the deluded, well, what in the world kind of authenticity do we think Maureen Dowd has?) she is just a drunken lezbo whose family cares far more about fashion than about substance.  She is one of those staunch Irish catholics that likes to beat up on Democratic men, questioning the virility and manliness (by innuendo, of course) at just about every step of the way, while cozying up to the father figure Republicans who will keep us safe from the evil wiles of Saddam, Mao-Tse Dung, Kruschev, Fidel Castro, etc, etc, etc. They have chosen tactics over truth with such consistency that it's impossible to accept anything they say [THE CLINTONS ARE SERIAL LIARS].  

Many liberals were rooting for Hillary to run for the Senate as a payback for all the alley cat had done. She had been publicly stoic through bruising betrayals [VERY MANLY OF HILLARY, DONT YOU KNOW - THE PUBLIC STOICISM].

But once again, she has taken on a contradictory image with dizzying speed. Comparing herself to Jesus and her husband to the betraying Peter, Hillary says he has a ''weakness,'' like a gambler or alcoholic. ''Everybody,'' she says, ''has some dysfunction in their families.'' (This is an interesting paragraph - I don't see how this compares Hillary to Jesus, and if this is the quote Hillary made (Everybody has some dysfunction in their families) it shows far deeper insights into the human condition than ANYTHING Dowd has ever written)

He's scarred, she says, by two women who adored him and who are not here to offer rebuttal. After talking about how hard it is for a guy to be yanked between female relatives, Hillary recreates that very situation, forcing Mr. Clinton to choose between defending his mother and grandmother and agreeing with his wife (Only in Maureen Dowd's twisted mind has Hillary forced Mr Clinton (otherwise known as President Clinton to choose between defending his mother and grandmother or agreeing with his wife ... one must take whatever Mrs Clinton is quoted as saying as possibly accurate.

Just how many columns such as this one does it take for example, for a midwestern social liberal to become disenchanted with the Clinton, and maybe waver a tad when it comes to voting for Gore?  I don't really know, seems to me like just another brick in the wall.