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pablate - Mon 01 Sep 2008 02:15 AM CDT
Connie Wilson - Sat 23 Aug 2008 06:31 PM CDT
altheakims - Tue 19 Aug 2008 04:28 AM CDT
Richard - Sun 17 Aug 2008 06:57 PM CDT
sspl05 - Sat 02 Aug 2008 07:21 AM CDT
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Sunday, October 31
"Bush and Cheney are so over," says Rover.
by
Linda Thieman
on Sun 31 Oct 2004 07:49 AM CST
"Bush and Cheney are so over," says Rover.
Good doggie, good doggie!
Blog for Iowa sinks to a new low,
but we can't help ourselves.
Lovely, patriotic doggie.
And speaking of signs . . .
Seems like there has been a rash of sign thefts lately. The Iowa
City crowd keeps getting their signs stolen from their lawns, and I
hear that when Kerry spoke in the Des Moines area recently, Kerry signs
went missing all over. (They didn't take the other candidates'
signs, just the Kerry signs. A selective group of thieves, as it were.)
Here in the boonies, the Thieman household had just made the trip to
Sioux City to pick up an Art Small sign and a Joyce Schulte sign - an
hour and a half drive for us - when the guy who mows our lawn, bags our leaves, and shovels our snow came over
and failed to replace our signs when he was done mowing.
And he
took the signs with him, apparently storing his equipment on top
of them on his flatbed. So, the next morning, I left a message on
his answering machine and asked him to please put the signs back.
Eight
hours later, at four in the afternoon, I called again and left a
message with his son. (This is a guy who, if you call him and
tell him you have a check for him, will be there in five minutes
flat.) Three hours later, still no signs, so I
called his wife. That did the trick. The next morning he
returned the Joyce Schulte sign to our yard, although it was half-way
shredded. Apparently, the Art Small sign was completely
shredded.
So, we went to Dem HQ in Sioux City again and got ourselves a new Art Small sign
and a new Joyce Schulte sign.
Unfortunately, the new signs had only been up one day when the wind
tunnel we live in grabbed the Schulte sign and blew it away. We
hope it landed upright in a Republican neighbor's yard. I'm
telling you, it is so windy here that if I had put a wind turbine on my
front lawn a year ago, I'd be a millionaire by now.
The Art Small sign still stands, although it did get rather mowed down
by the wind, too. It's not quite as flat, however, as our Howard
Dean sign after two feet of snow fell on it last January.
Then, last night, I got a call from the BV County Dems HQ and they told
me that our absentee ballots had not been recorded as returned.
And we mailed those in 3 weeks ago! We mailed them from the Storm
Lake post office and they had to travel a full half mile to get to the
courthouse. So, now, I'll be chasing that down on Monday.
Either it just didn't get put up on the website that the Dems are
using, or the Republican county auditor is losing a lot of Dem absentee
ballots.
If you sent in your absentee ballot ages ago and keep getting panicked
calls from national, state, and local Dems asking if you've returned
it, take the hint and call your county auditor to see if your ballot has been received. Monday is the last day.
Politicking is haaarrrrrrrdddddd!
Linda Thieman
Saturday, October 16
Jon Stewart on Crossfire Yesterday
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 16 Oct 2004 03:14 PM CDT
 Jon Stewart on Crossfire Yesterday
A report from Blog for America, where everyone at DFA HQ was watching Jon Stewart on CNN's Crossfire - and then they watched it a few more times on TiVo:
Stewart
took over the show - called Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson partisan
hacks, called the show and others like it theatre, said they are
hurting America.
He
begged for a true debate show, not a joust of disingenuous talking
points. He made the distinction that while the hosts and guests on
either side probably genuinely believe that Bush or Kerry would make
the better president, the arguments they offer are frequently
dishonest.
Asked
which candidate would provide "better material" for him as a comedian,
he said it didn't matter - that the absurdity of the system drives the
humor (before thanking the hosts for adding what they can to that
absurdity).
This was one of those rare moments when someone talked through the filter.
Yeah, Begala and Carlson were not pleased, to say the least. Click here
to read the transcript or to view a video clip. The clip takes a
long time to load, even on high-speed Internet, but if you watch all
the way through, you'll get to see what ELSE Jon Stewart called Tucker
Carlson!
The REALLY funny
part was when Tucker kept saying to Jon that Jon wasn't funny, in spite
of the fact that the audience was laughing their heads off. That
is just like the GOP talking points - deny the obvious and press on
full speed ahead with the lies and the spin.
Friday, October 15
More Late Night Humor
by
Linda Thieman
on Fri 15 Oct 2004 11:46 PM CDT
More Late Night Humor
I just dropped by the Woodbury County Dems website and illegally detained some choice Late Night morsels.
“George
W. Bush and Dick Cheney have now come forward and officially conceded
that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. In fact,
feeling the tremendous relief that came from admitting this, they also
said there’s no Santa Claus, O.J. did it, and Al Gore has really been
president for the last four years.”
--Jay Leno
“Ralph
Nader has criticized both Bush and Kerry for belonging to a secret
organization when they went to Yale. Is Nader one really to criticize?
You know, he belongs to a secret organization. It’s called Nader for
President.”
--Jay Leno
“This
was the town hall debate, and Bush says he likes the personal feel of a
town hall. There’s something about getting out there and lying directly
to people’s faces.”
--Bill Maher
“Tonight’s
debate was what they called the town hall debate. Both candidates were
seated on stools. It was funny, from force of habit, Bush said ‘Scotch
and water, hold the ice.’”
--David Letterman
“Did you see Cheney next to Edwards? Didn’t it look like the before and after pictures on ‘Extreme Makeover’?”
--Jay Leno
“Political
experts say Bush was off his game. He looked distracted, confused, a
little at a loss for words. Off his game? That is Bush’s game.”
--Jay Leno, on the first debate
“People are saying that George Bush didn’t do well. In fact, Kerry even picked up the support of one of the Bush twins.”
--David Letterman
“Experts are saying if this had been a game show, Bush would’ve gone home with a handshake and a quart of motor oil.”
--David Letterman
Wednesday, October 6
Presidenting is haaarrrrdd!
by
Linda Thieman
on Wed 06 Oct 2004 02:00 PM CDT
 Presidenting is haaarrrrdd!
Do you remember that Saturday Night Live
sketch from shortly after Bush was appointed by the Supreme
Court? Bush was having a hard time nailing down the hard
complexities of the hard job before him.
And he cried, "Presidenting is haaaaarrrrrrrddddd!"
Well, this came in from Andrew Smith, Democratic candidate for Iowa House in District 40 (Tama and Grundy counties).
Andrew writes: It’s
kind of a cheap shot to poke fun at Bush’s vocabulary, or lack thereof,
but I took the debate transcript and cut and pasted each sentence where
Bush said some variation of the word “Hard” Thursday night and put it
into one paragraph. I count 20 times Bush used some variation of the
word “Hard.”
Well, it
may be a cheap shot, Andrew, but Blog for Iowa has never had any qualms
about taking cheap shots. Especially when it's so much fun.
See below.
BUSH: It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's the hardest decision a president makes. There's a lot of good people working hard. There's a lot of really good people working hard to do so. It's hard work. And it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. The plan says we'll train Iraqi soldiers so they can do the hard work, and we are. It is hard work. It is hard work to go from a tyranny to a democracy.
[Cough, cough. Sorry. Had
to take a break there when Bush said it is hard work to go from "a
tyranny to a democracy." BFIA]
BUSH: It's hard work to go from a place where people get...executed, to a place where people are free. You know, my hardest -- the hardest
part of the job is to know that I committed the troops in harm's way
and then do the best I can to provide comfort for the loved ones who
lost a son or a daughter or a husband or wife. You know, it's hard
work to try to love her as best as I can, knowing full well that the
decision I made caused her loved one to be in harm's way. It's hard work. Everybody knows it's hard work, because there's a determined enemy that's trying to defeat us. I understand how hard it is to commit troops. Vladimir is going to have to make some hard choices.
20 times.
['Member the time 4 years ago when Bush called the President of Mexico "a man that I know?" That was awesome.]
And just a few more zingers from the Woodbury County Dems website:
“The
first presidential debate is Thursday in Florida. I think it’s Bush’s
way of saying thank-you for that last crooked election.”
--David Letterman
“Everyone
is talking about the ground rules. Kerry wants his podium to be tall
enough so he can rest his hands. And Bush wants it to be wide
enough to hide Dick Cheney.”
--Conan O’Brien
“I tell you, Bush is working very hard getting prepared for these debates. He got one of those ‘Hooked on Phonics’ tapes.”
--Jay Leno
Saturday, October 2
Dean Hands Harkin Fistful of Cash for Iowa Candidates
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 02 Oct 2004 12:34 PM CDT
Dean Hands Harkin Fistful of Cash for Iowa Candidates
Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (left) and Gov. Howard Dean
It
was announced on Blog for America yesterday that Gov. Howard Dean and his
organization, Democracy for America, have handed over checks made out to
some Iowa candidates to Senator Tom Harkin. Blog for Iowa can
only guess which candidates will receive these badly-needed funds since
the envelopes had apparently been kept hermetically sealed on Funk
& Wagnall's porch until noon yesterday.
In
the photo above, you can see Senator Tom Harkin readying to place the
envelopes to his forehead to try to divine the number of candidates
involved.
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