McCain: Americans Wouldn’t Pick Lettuce for $50 An Hour
BY MR. SENSIBLE
We make up some ridiculous scenarios on this blog, but sometimes reality is a better provider of absurdity than the imagination. Case in point: This video has been circulating on some of the blogs over the last couple of days, but I haven’t seen anyone put it in context yet. If you haven’t seen it, make sure to watch it:
Here’s the context: This is from a speech McCain gave on April 4, 2006 to the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department. According to the AP’s account, the audience was unfriendly to McCain throughout, but when one audience member asked a question about McCain’s immigration policy, things got even more heated.
The first questioner seemed to challenge his commitment to organized labor. When McCain started to praise a particular labor group in Arizona, the crowd booed again.
“Stop!” he said with a smile, drawing laughter from the crowd. “I surrender.”
But he took more questions, including a pointed one on his immigration plan.
McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.
Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain’s job offer.
“I’ll take it!” one man shouted.
McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. “You can’t do it, my friends.”
Some in the crowd said they didn’t appreciate McCain questioning their work ethic.
McCain’s condescension and low opinion of those he’s speaking to can be measured in two passages. First is the offering of $50 an hour to pick lettuce. As we’ve all learned this past week from his confusion about how many houses he owns, McCain has the funds to back up such an offering. It reminds his audience of his place in the world and theirs. And like the $5 million figure he gave last week in the Rick Warren forum to define rich, $50 an hour is a highly inflated figure. Fifty dollars an hour equates to $8,667 a month if you work 40 hours a week. Me, my wife, and most everyone else I know would gladly take him up on this offer if it were legitimate. Let me tell you, for $50 an hour we would do it, and do it well.
But secondly, McCain tells the audience that they couldn’t do it. It’s the typical line that you hear about the American worker - that they’re too spoiled by modern conveniences to do this kind of work. I don’t think that’s entirely true. I just think that, if you’re talking about $7 an hour (an arbitrary figure of my own - the immigrants might make much less) to pick lettuce or work at Wal-Mart, most would choose Wal-Mart. If you’re talking about a living wage to pick lettuce, I think you’d find a lot more ready-and-willing American lettuce pickers.
This episode calls to mind McCain’s more recent gaffe of saying in response to Americans exporting cigarettes to Iran: “Maybe that’s a way of killing them.” He plays it off as a joke but his zeal to “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran” has been duly noted in recent days. The lettuce incident is an even less thinly veiled, consummately elitist insult to the people of this country who he claims to love so dear, and seeks to lead.
If we sought such derisiveness from our leaders, we would have demanded that Dick Cheney run for president.
This Earth Day, Let’s Repeal the 22nd
BY JIM HUNT
It’s that time of the year again for all the bedwetting hippie liberals to get all righteous about loving Mother Earth. That’s right - today is Earth Day.
I was probably in college the first time I heard some treehugger say that “Every day is Earth Day.” But now I see more and more people living by those words. And I intend to do something about it.
In the liberal press this week - from Time to the New York Times - you’ll find dozens of reports on how you can be a better dirt-worshipping douche bag. So in the interests of parity, I decided to share the ways I’m going to improve the world this Earth Day.
On Earth Day, April 22, I’m launching two grass-roots organizations. You hear liberals talking all the time about “grass roots organizing.” But normal people can do this too.
We have no time to waste with either of the organizations I’m starting. The first is called Repeal the 22nd, which will work to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution. As you may know, this amendment limits the president to just two terms in office.
I can see how this amendment was a good idea when it was passed back in 1951. Just a few years earlier, Socialist president Franklin D. Roosevelt served three full terms and part of another.
But now we are in a much different situation. In less than nine months, John McCain, Hillary Lesbo Clinton or Barack Hussein Osama will be our next president unless We the People take drastic action. Most normal people realize what an amazing job the Bush administration has done these last seven years keeping America safe and relatively prosperous in a time of great danger. By repealing the 22nd, we can give this great man a chance to stay in office and make the world even safer for democracy.
The second organization I plan to start is Citizens for Bush/Cheney 2008. We will raise campaign funds for Bush/Cheney so they’ll be armed and ready in the event that Repeal the 22nd is successful.
In the wake of all this Al Gore nonsense, President Bush has done an extraordinary job in making sure that this country continues to have a sensible energy policy. Demand isn’t decreasing, so we need to increase supply. The thing is, there’s no good reason to reduce our demand. God gave man a special place on this Earth. He gave us resources to use as we see fit. And He’s our protector. Man is not God. We don’t have control over the climate. It’s just that simple. Think of it this way - if Al Gore says it, it must be wrong.
Bush recognizes man’s place in the world. His recent words may be troubling but his record is untarnished. He has repeatedly attempted to allow drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuge and has given up millions of acres in Wyoming for coal mining. He knows that to go green is to go red - both fiscally and politically.
With your help, we can continue to have an energy policy that recognizes that man, not beast nor plant, is the ruler of this planet. This Earth Day, I urge you to support Repeal the 22nd and Citizens for Bush/Cheney 2008.
Jim Hunt is the senior vice president for a major oil refinery and a state senator in the Texas legislature.
Clinton Claims Status as Expert Sharpshooter Deterred Bosnian Snipers
BY MEGAN ESTES
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton offered a new explanation on Wednesday for what occurred during her visit to Tuzla, Bosnia in 1996.
Several times during the campaign, Clinton said she “remembered landing under sniper fire” in Tuzla. When footage of the landing showed that not to be the case, Clinton said the remarks were “misstatements.”
But at a speech in Pittsburgh, Pa., Clinton said the tranquility in Tuzla was due to intimidation. Accordingly to Clinton, her reputation as a marksman had preceded her.
“I’ve let the secret out in the few days,” Clinton said, “but before that it wasn’t widely known that I’m quite a good shot. Maybe I’m being too modest here… I’m actually a great shot. In fact, the U.S. Navy has awarded me with a metal as a certified expert sharpshooter.
“That actually puts me in a very, very elite group. So when we sent word to the rebel factions that I was flying over and I had this distinction and I was armed, they immediately vacated the area surrounding the airfield. That’s why I was able to spend all that time with the little girl in the video.”
Clinton said she misspoke about landing under sniper fire because she prefers to be modest about her skills as a marksman.
“I know that people will find this hard to believe. In fact, my opponent has made some rather disparaging comments recently about me thinking I’m Annie Oakley. Obviously he didn’t take my marksmanship seriously. That’s why I am challenging him to a duck hunt for the nomination. If he kills one duck for every three of mine, I’ll declare him the winner. I couldn’t possibly expect such a condescending elitist to be my peer in duck hunting.”
High Schoolers Engineer a 2,843 MPG Car…
…and we can’t buy a vehicle that gets more than 50 mpg? What is wrong with this picture?
Link:
2,843 mpg? High school team takes the prize
McCain Campaign Learns Heavy Metal and Old Folks Don’t Mix
BY MEGAN ESTES
In the annals of campaign lore, it will forever be known as Grannygate.
It was supposed to be a fundraising boon - maybe even a PR boon, a tongue-in-cheek tour de force - for the McCain campaign, but it turned out to be an outrageous comedy of errors.
To put it mildly, Republicans have struggled to raise cash in this election cycle. So after watching Hillary Clinton raise $2.5 million in one night last week thanks to an Elton John concert, you couldn’t help but feel that the McCain campaign was growing even more self-conscious about their April 11 fundraiser with Pat Boone.
Boone rose to fame in the 1950s singing pop fare and safe-for-suburbia versions of down-and-dirty Elvis Presley and Little Richard tunes. Unlike some other singers of the period, his appeal rarely crosses generational lines. In other words, meeting a Pat Boone fan under the age of 60 is as common as meeting someone who still hopes that Michael Dukakis will make a successful run for the presidency.
When the Boone fundraiser was initially booked in February, it was set for the Sound Factory in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a 500-capacity club that caters to a younger audience.
But a lack of demand for tickets required a change of venue. So on Saturday evening Sen. McCain and Pat Boone both arrived at the Forty Palms Retirement Community in Fort Lauderdale. A crabby McCain greeted an elderly audience of about 100.
“You know, it takes a special kind of crowd to make me feel young,” said the presumptive Republican nominee. “Even in the Senate I feel ancient. A show of hands: How many people here remember what they had for breakfast this morning?”
About 20 confused, sour-looking seniors raised their hands apprehensively.
“Who here is for assisted suicide? A show of hands: Who would sign up right now?” McCain asked jokingly. “If I get enough hands I’ll try to get some legislation on it.”
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“Some of the younger volunteers here started playing Pat Boone’s ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’ album,” explained Alejandro Ferrer, manager of McCain’s Miami office. “It’s that album he did about 10 years ago where he did big band versions of classic rock and metal tunes. Someone got the idea to ask him to do a fundraiser for the campaign and play those tunes, but instead of a big band, have a real metal band. Much to our surprise, he agreed to do it.”
Tickets went on sale Feb. 8 for a minimum donation of $99. When March 18 rolled around and only 20 tickets were sold to buyers whose average age was 68, the campaign changed plans.
Rather than attempting to remarket the event at this late date, Ferrer cancelled the Sound Factory booking and reserved Forty Palms’ 160-capacity dining room. The minimum donation was dropped to $39.
Boone’s management was to be told to scrap the all-metal set in favor of the crooner’s hits. Ferrer delegated that task to an unpaid volunteer.
Here’s where things went from bad to worse: the volunteer in Miami never got in touch with Boone’s management about the change in plans.
“It slipped through the cracks,” explains Ferrer. “This volunteer was very dependable but overburdened.” Boone got word of the venue change, but that’s it.
So when Boone and his band took the stage at Forty Palms, no one - the campaign, the candidate, and certainly not the audience - was ready for what came next.
Pat Boone took the stage clad in a black leather suit with a four-piece rock band that looked like Metallica circa 1991. They launched into Van Halen’s “Panama” and the place went crazy.
Seniors were covering their ears, stomping their feet, gnashing their dentures, and burying their heads in their hands. The sound was deafening. The song lasted for eight interminable minutes thanks to two extended guitar solos. An audible groan was heard when the song was over.
“I want to thank everyone for coming out,” said Boone. “I realize that may have been too loud for some folks, so I’m going to ask these guys to turn it down quite a bit. We apologize if that bothered anyone, but the McCain campaign has asked us to play a different type of music tonight.”
“Play ‘Ain’t That a Shame,’” said one disgruntled audience member.
“Play ‘April Love,’” demanded another.
After that opened a floodgate of requests from a much earlier era, Boone explained that he wanted to show them what young people were listening to today (”today” meaning 15 to 40 years ago).
With that, the band launched into Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.” As on the previous number, Boone and his band sounded like Black Sabbath with Perry Como singing lead.
It was truly a surreal experience, made more so by the increasingly uncomfortable reactions of the audience. The band was still far too loud. Several people began to leave.
Boone again asked the band to turn down the volume, and they played a much softer tune, Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary.” This seemed to appease the crowd until the next song, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
At that moment, all hell broke loose. People began throwing things: cups, food scraps, silverware, even a set of dentures. McCain’s security team surged forward and escorted the band out of the room.
Neither McCain nor Boone won themselves any new fans.
“I’m a life-long Republican, but after that fiasco, I’d vote for a Castro over John McCain,” said Forty Palms resident Lena Bader.
“I came for Pat Boone, not McCain,” said fellow resident Bellina Bellucci. “To me, this is just typical of the Republicans. Everywhere they go, they create chaos. Our dining hall was like the streets of Baghdad! They even make the beautiful music of Pat Boone sound like the drums of war. It was horrible!”
To add insult to injury, what was supposed to be a $100,000 event raised only $6,000. The Republican fundraising and PR deficit is rising by the hour.
Link:
Video highlights from McCain/Boone April 11 fundraiser
Hillary Goes Haywire in Pottsville
BY MEGAN ESTES
In her increasingly desperate attempt to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton exponentially increased her harsh criticism of Senator Barack Obama on Saturday at a town hall meeting in Pottsville, Pa.
In remarks made at a San Francisco fund-raiser on April 6, Obama said, “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them… And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Clinton’s recent criticism of this remark reached another level in this excerpt from her speech in Pottsville:
My opponent has said that people in small-town Pennsylvania are bitter and has implied that they are downright mean-spirited. This just strikes me as the most out-of-touch thing you could possibly say.
As I have traveled all over this wonderful state in the last several weeks, getting to know thousands of people just like you in places like Bethlehem and Wilkes-Barre and Scranton and Butler and Altoona and right here in Pottsville, I have found that the people of Pennsylvania are some of the most friendly, welcoming, good-natured and optimistic people in the whole country.
So I was shocked when I heard what Senator Obama said to a group of bigwigs in San Francisco about the people of Pennsylvania. Let’s just start with your jobs. So you’ve lost a lot of factory jobs up here. They paid fairly well and they had good benefits. But did you really like those jobs? Did you really get up every morning and say to yourselves, ‘I can’t wait to go into the factory this morning and subject myself to hours of loud noises, hard physical labor, bright flashing lights, and toxic fumes?’ The fact that Sen. Obama would think you’d be upset about losing all that really calls his judgment into question.
And my opponent says nothing has replaced these jobs. I think we all know how ridiculous that is. Instead of working in these infernal factory conditions, you can now work in the service industry, where you can interact with the public in safe, climate-controlled conditions. I mean, what would you rather do, make a sandwich or make steel? Interact with the public or take orders from a slave-driving supervisor? Be a greeter at Wal-Mart or assemble furniture at the Pennsylvania House plant?
And even if you aren’t able to get a job for a while, what’s so bad about that? I would kill for some time off right now!
But all that seems like the less offensive part of my opponent’s remarks. What really stunned me was the part about guns, religion and ‘antipathy.’ Ha! Antipathy! Now that’s a pretty big word. What he’s saying there is that you don’t like people who aren’t as trigger-happy, bible-thumping, or bigoted as yourselves. He makes it sound like you all just wandered out of the hills after marrying your first cousins and having 12 six-fingered kids and now you’re ready to shoot down anyone who looks at you funny.
You know, as I travel across this great state, I reflect on the monumental choice Pennsylvania voters have in just 10 days. You can elect someone who doesn’t understand you, thinks you don’t like him, thinks you’re inbred, and uses words you don’t understand, or you can elect someone who sees you as the contented, remarkable, moral, cherubic people that you are. It’s a clear choice, and I know that you will make the right decision.
Ann Coulter Receives KKK’s Lifetime Achievement Award
BY MEGAN ESTES
The Confederation of the Ku Klux Klan awarded author and columnist Ann Coulter with a lifetime achievement award for her “courageous work in promoting true American values.”
The organization recognized Coulter at their national conference, which was held in Vernon, Fla., this past weekend. Coulter attended the conference’s closing ceremonies to accept the award and deliver the keynote address.
Confederation president Robert Styles of Boggsville, Ky., gave Coulter a glowing 10-minute introduction. He acknowledged that Coulter, 46, is by far the youngest winner of the award to date, but said she was a near-unanimous choice because of her beliefs, fiery rhetoric, and achievements as a nationally syndicated columnist and bestselling author.
Styles said Coulter is “virtually alone in the mainstream media in speaking the truth on issues that are important to us. She is on our side when it comes to illegal immigration, religion, abortion, gun rights, welfare reform, homosexuality and affirmative action. In fact, if there’s going to be a ‘national conversation on race,’ it shouldn’t be Barack Hussein Obama leading it, but Ann Coulter.”
“I’m not so sure that I agree with you on all of the issues,” said Coulter in her opening remarks. “For starters, I consider myself to be a post-racial American. But one thing is certain, me winning this award and giving this speech is going to drive liberals insane. Excuse me - more insane.”
Coulter did little to distinguish her positions from those of the KKK. Instead, her speech focused on a number of issues of particular interest to her audience, including the history of the Confederate flag, immigration, race, national security, and the current presidential candidates.
Arguing that the Confederate flag was not a symbol of racism, Coulter contended that it “stands for a romantic image of a chivalric, honor-based culture that was driven down by crass Yankee capitalism.”
Coulter also unleashed a litany of provocative quotes on other subjects. On immigration: “We should use illegal immigrants to build a wall between the Mexican and U.S. border. Then, when they’re done, we should send them all back where they came from, along with all the other illegals.”
On Muslims: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.”
On Democrats and Republicans: “There are some bad Republicans, but there are no good Democrats.”
She also went after Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, taking a cue from Styles’ introduction. In it Styles cited Coulter’s April 2 column, which compared Senator Barack Obama’s 1995 memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” He praised Coulter for exposing Obama as an “insecure racist” who if elected “would signal the final death knell for the American way-of-life.”
Coulter expounded on her reading of Obama’s memoir, focusing on his identity crisis during high school. She said that Obama’s “self-absorbed, self-important” reflections in the book made his controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright, look like Booker T. Washington.
“Here’s a little inside scoop about white people: We’re not thinking about you,” said Coulter. “Especially WASPs. We think everybody is inferior, and we are perfectly charming about it.”
The audience, comprised predominantly of men and totaling approximately 150, contained their visible excitement during the first moments of the speech, but cheered louder and longer as it continued. The applause reached a crescendo when Coulter said that “Southerners are America’s warrior class.”
Coulter signed autographs after her speech and conversed amicably with attendees.
“She really hit the nail on the head,” said J.K. Gruber, a Klansman from Bell Towne, Ohio. “Some people say the Klan’s gone soft, but Ann sure hasn’t. She really feels like one of us.”
Like many others on this site, this story is not factual. It merely attempts to fabricate a plausible scenario.
Checking In with Sen. Larry Craig
BY MR. SENSIBLE
So how’s our old pal Sen. Larry Craig doing? Sen. Craig didn’t really talk to Mr. Sensible and answer these five questions. But if he did, it is within the realm of possibility that his answers would have sounded something like what follows.
1. Why did you change your mind about resigning your Senate seat?
Sen. Craig: I have been very consistent from the time the details about this case first became public that I would not leave my post in the Senate until my name is cleared, which will happen in the very near future.
2. So what was all that business last summer about you leaving your seat on Sept. 30?
Sen. Craig: I never said that! When my defense becomes public you will find out about my gay identical twin brother, Hartley Craig. He has repeatedly impersonated me in order to steal campaign contributions, go to expensive dinners with lobbyists, and engage in sex acts with other men.
3. I must admit that I’ve done a good deal of research about you beforehand and I’ve read nothing about an identical twin brother, let alone one who is impersonating you. This is quite a revelation you’re sharing with us. Why are we just learning of this?
Sen. Craig: I didn’t know about him either until all this business in Minneapolis happened. It turns out that he was stolen from my family at the age of six months and was raised by communists in Greenwich Village. My mother kept the news from me because it was too painful for her to relive. All she wanted to do was forget about it. So when Hartley was discovered in Minneapolis he told the authorities he was me. Since his release he’s nowhere to be found and the authorities have been coming after me thinking that I was the guy in the bathroom.
4. So was it Hartley Craig who told the world that Larry Craig was vacating his Senate seat on Sept. 30?
Sen. Craig: Yes, that was Hartley. He has repeatedly engaged in assassinating my character because my stances on policy are so diametrically opposed to his.
5. So if that was Hartley, why didn’t someone apprehend him for questioning?
Sen. Craig: So far as I can tell, Hartley Craig is the Osama bin Laden of the homosexual movement. He releases audio tapes, video tapes, press releases, and yet he is nowhere to be found, all the while engaging in a terrorist assault on my name. I have made it my first priority to find Hartley Craig and put an end to this treachery.
Clinton Chief Strategist Says $20 Million More Than $40 Million
BY MEGAN ESTES
Barack Obama raised $40 million for his campaign in March compared to $20 million for Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to contribution totals announced today. In what was surely the most bewildering moment of the campaign thus far, Clinton’s chief strategist Sean Franklin contended in a conference call with reporters that $20 million was more than $40 million.
“For starters, there are more zeros in $20 million than in $40 million,” Franklin said. “And if you spell it out, $20 million has more letters too.”
Pressed on how there were more zeros in $20 million than in $40 million, Franklin argued that the Clinton campaign had the right to put a decimal with two zeros at the end of their figure, while the Obama campaign had no such right to do so.
“And we can do this because we’ve won the big states that Democrats must win in November. California, New York, Ohio, Florida - they’re all ours. When Obama wins an important state like that, he too can put a decimal point and two zeros at the end of his contribution totals.
“But even if he wins that right, $20 million is still more than $40 million.”
Our Confusing Economy, Explained
BY MR. SENSIBLE
Today’s “Fresh Air” on NPR provided the best overview I’ve heard yet on what’s wrong with the economy right now, how we got to this point, and where we might be heading in the future. Terri Gross interviews University of Maryland law professor Michael Greenberger, who says that our current financial crisis is due largely to the deregulation that has occurred over the last 10 years.
Greenberger isn’t sure what is going to happen in the future but offers some dire possibilities. He says the collapse of Bear Stearns might be the explosion of the coal mine, meaning that the worst is over, or it could be the canary in the coal mine, meaning the real explosion is coming. Let’s hope it’s not the latter.
Link: