John McNicotine is now for the tobacco lobby after years of working against it. He not only opposes the cigarette taxes he used to support but also opposes FDA regulation of the tobacco industry after years of supporting it. McNicotine is an ex-smoker and should understand just how addictive nicotine is, and he even acknowledged the exceptionally high death rate for tobacco users when he joked that cigarette exports to Iran were part of his plot to kill Iranian citizens. For McNicotine to cave in to the tobacco cartel is the ultimate flip-flop:
http://www.boston.com/...
Why has McNicotine caved in to the interests of the tobacco drug cartel? It couldn't possibly have anything to do with hiring tobacco lobbyist Charlie Black as his senior adviser. Move along folks. There's nothing to see here:
http://firedoglake.com/...
Now let's use the traditional Rethug "moral values" and "sanctity of life" frames against McNicotine! There's more in the flip.
As a Dem and a Liberal one of the things the Dog feel he as to do (and the rest of us too) is spend time breaking the conceptual frames of the Repugs. Think of it as maintenance, sure it is no fun, it does not really advance our goals, but if we don’t do it, it limits the goals we can set and achieve. Part of this is trying not to use the words that represent the larger idea of the frame, things like not saying "gay marriage" but saying "full civil rights for all citizens". That is the most basic of the tactics to combat the frames, but there is another area where we need to work. It does us no good to let the Repugs chase us off of words and ideas that support that core of liberal values, we have to go after their core concepts as well and show them to be the misdirection that they are.
There it is again! McCain questions Obama's judgment. It was a drum beat on NPR today. It is ridiculous. George Lakoff must be screaming about it and I am unable to resist ranting here! How does he question Obama's judgment? John McCain is promising that he can bring us victory! Yup, for the first time in world history if we elect this man he will bring us victory in the occupation of another country! He did not tell us what that meant. Incidentally, he framed it as a "war". But GWB declared the war over some years ago. We are into an occupation. Just a while ago we had an increase in our occupying forces. The people who said the war was over some time ago called this increase in troop levels a "surge". Today John McCain said that Obama lacks judgment because he still fails to acknowledge the success of the surge. These are the front lines of the framing wars and Lakoff has warned us about them. It seems that the warning that we can only lose the debate by accepting their framing still needs to be understood. Look below the break and let's try again.
(Disclaimer: I am NOT a Scientologist, I think it's a repressive, fraudulent cult. Disliking some aspects of modern psychiatry does NOT mean I have any love for Scientology.)
I don't normally read the health blogs very much, but seeing this story made me click, though I know I probably shouldn't have for how pissed off I became after reading it.
Suicide is a very personal issue for me. I've had suicidal friends, and I would be lying to say it hasn't crossed my mind at times. I'm also a part of something where one of the most influential people involved at one point (it could be argued that he co-created visual kei) died of a tragic accident that people to this day hastily write off as intentional suicide.
And it it my opinion that the psychiatric response to suicide and narrative of what it means to be suicidal is thoroughly inadequate. . .
McCain's involvement in the run up to and the response to the Georgian crisis, capped by his appearance at the Faith Based Forum on the 16th makes it quite clear.
McCain has no qualms about antagonizing the Russians, just ask him about Georgia.
With a President McCain, I fear we will diving head first right back into The Cold War, or worse.
This ad needs to be updated.
The basic message that Johnson spoke of then still holds as true today.
Over 140 clergy sent a letter to presidential candidate Barack Obama urging him to return to the strong peace and social justice focus that helped him win the Democratic primaries.
This summer there is a big opportunity for the Democratic Party to win the debate on energy. To do so, however, everyone from grassroots activists to presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama will have to resist being drawn into a useless fight about 'drilling' and launch the big discussion that focuses voters on the daunting, but very American challenges we face.
How do we do that?
In today's post, I offer a few suggestions not just on how to reframe the debate on 'energy,' but how to win it. The takeaway concept I repeat over and over again is big story. What is the big story in the energy debate? Who controls the big story in the current debate? Who benefits from one big story versus another big story?
To win the debate on energy, Democrats need to go beyond giving advice on car maintenance (e.g., inflate your tires), and push a big story about: rapid redesign.
[T]he debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.
Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.
What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”
The murmuring in the blogosphere against Obama's run-of-the-mill ad campaign have been growing louder. The general feeling seems to be that you can't sell a new kind of politics while using the well-worn templates of Democratic campaigns of yore. Mike Lux wants more Obama face-time in ads, and that could surely make voters feel like they know him better. But it really does little to address the essential problem: a laundry-list, policy-wonk ad--no matter how it's filmed--is still a laundry-list, policy-wonk ad.
I steer clear of cable news, much the way I try to avoid toxic fumes or rabid dogs. But Jon Stewart's recent anthology of clips featuring the idio-punditocracy's use of "card" to describe every tactic by either campaign – culminating, of course, with McCain's playing of the "race card," helped me realize something.
The "race card" has virtually nothing to do with defining Obama and everything to do with McCain defining himself.
That is the question according to Drew Westen in yesterday's The Huffington Post. His article Why Voters Say they Don't Really Know Barack Obama (and Why They Don't Really Know Much about John McCain, Either) is another try at directing the candidate by someone who claims to be expert on political thought. Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation," recently released in paperback with a new postscript on the 2008 primaries. I just bought the book because it was a major reference in George Lakoff's book The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st Century American Politics With an 18th Brain. Brains seem to be the theme in this election at least with these two pundits. Where the public stands on this I do not know. If it were their criterea for a candidate Obama would be a shoo in. Let us see what he is saying below the break.
At times, we might forget that there are a good number of very bright, extremely dedicated, and fundamental people working in Congress. Elected officials and staff. Our funding system that seems to drive member after member to be begging, tin in cup, for funds can make the entire process look open to purchase. The traditional media mania for ever lower quality reporting magnifies this, making foolish shallowness the norm. Reality is far from this and it is worthwhile at times to take a moment to consider that reality.
many in the right-wing sound machine are all too willing to act as an off-key chorus singing the praises of this 
At times, we might forget that there are a good number of very bright, extremely dedicated, and fundamental people working in Congress. Elected officials and staff. Our funding system that seems to drive member after member to be begging, tin in cup, for funds can make the entire process look open to purchase. The traditional media mania for ever lower quality reporting magnifies this, making foolish shallowness the norm. Reality is far from this and it is worthwhile at times to take a moment to consider that reality.
