corrente

Here's Johnny!
"Roar, my friends, Roar!"


4

Dahlia Lithwick (Slate.com):

The Madwoman in the Blogosphere; The disturbing rise of the "Hillary Harridan."

[...]

Today's PUMA blog hisses "NO MORE MS GOOD GIRLS!!"

The media have been complicit in lapping up the tales of bitter old women. Any story erected around a pre-literary archetype of the destructive power of a woman scorned is destined to be hit candy, whether or not it represents any statistical reality. It's hardly clear that Team Hillary is as vast or as powerful as it claims. Polls suggest there isn't a deep pool of Obama-hating women who could derail his election.

[...]

These disgruntled women—whether they plan to vote for John McCain, sit out the election, or simply gobble up airtime—are tacitly working toward electing McCain; a candidate who claimed last week at a presidential forum at Saddleback Church that life begins "at the moment of conception" and who voted against legislation ensuring equal pay for women. These women must be well aware that a vote for McCain is a vote to overturn Roe. I assume they don't care. But my real problem with the Hillary Harridans—and the media's relentless focus on them—is that they give new life to Paleozoic stereotypes about irrationally destructive older women.

None of this has anything to do with the legitimate outrage most of us felt about sexism in the coverage of the Clinton campaign. Women have many reasons to be angry in America, and I am not suggesting that all political discourse must happen in hushed voices and bowties. It is not insignificant that Hillary supporters felt disrespected, shut down, and unheard in the primary process. But as Taylor Marsh has pointed out, they've now become victims of the same sexist media machine that turned Clinton herself into a parody of a madwoman. They have fallen prey to an "echo chamber that promises hope, but only delivers deceit by offering claims of something that will not come." They are given unlimited airtime, so long as they continue to threaten to topple the entire edifice of the Democratic Party in pursuit of some ephemeral, unreachable sweet revenge.

Read in full at link above.

For example - Here's a litter box sampling from something called "Tennessee Guerilla Women":

At one point, one of the women on this blog called Michelle Obama an ape. That's how low it has gotten.
-------------------
You know, Michelle Obama is an ape. Not because she is black, but because of how she behaves.

And on and on it goes. Get the idea? Moving along...

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driftglass:

Zelda Miller

The equation was simple: a Hillary Clinton -- the proxy for generation, who Suffered For Your Sins under Limbaugh, Died under Cheatin' Bill, but was Reborn as the Junior Senator from New York -- was entitled to be President.

E-n-t-i-t-l-e-d.

[...]

What truly disturbs me about these people is not their passion. Not their policy positions. Not whatever “Pay attention to me!” pageant they want to stage in Denver.

Not even that they have reduced themselves to the level of tantrum-throwing parody who would rather burn the whole toy chest to the ground rather that let that uppity man from Chicago play with Hillary’s Dream House.

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Betty Cracker:

A PUMA by any other name...

Even if the rank-and-file clowns of this year’s election sideshow, the PUMAs, can’t perceive it, their leaders surely know the circus will soon fold its big tent. When your entire act consists of jumping through flaming hoops of gender, age and race-based resentment, lurid personal psychodrama and self-destructive vitriol centered around one year’s election results, well, it’s not a show with a long shelf life.

Enter PUMA redux: The New Agenda. Oh, they call themselves a “nonpartisan group.” And why shouldn’t we believe them? After all, it says so right in their press release, as featured prominently on self-described conservative and PUMA blogs. No partisanship there.

[...]

The New Agenda you say? Same old PUMA crap, I say—the kitty can’t change its spots this easily. And as a woman, can I just say I wish these people would stop trying to help us sisters out so much? They personify every negative stereotype of women ever propagated, giving an imprimatur of legitimacy to the sexist tropes trotted out by their patriarchal, knuckle-dragging new BFFs in the conservative press.

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Finally, what's the perfect accompaniment for a secret PUMA cuddle huddle at some small out of the way motel? How about hooking up with Andy Martin or Webster Tarpley!

Dandy Andy (pictured in photo link), chatting up the ladies at the recent PUMA confabulation, meeeow!.

Role in rumors about Obama
According to a report by journalist Chris Hayes for The Nation, Martin issued a press release shortly after Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that he had evidence Obama "lied to the American people" and "misrepresent[ed] his own heritage." Martin claimed that Obama was really a Muslim, and was possibly hiding this fact "to endanger Israel."[1]

Within a few days, the conservative site Free Republic picked up Martin's press release, triggering a long discussion. However, according to Hayes, the issue went dormant after Obama's election to the Senate, only to pick up again in 2006 as rumors spread that Obama was considering a presidential run.[1] In October, a conservative blog, Infidel Bloggers Alliance, reposted Martin's press release in response to a question about Obama's heritage.[11] Then, on December 26, conservative activist Ted Sampley, co-founder of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, posted a column suggesting Obama was a secret Muslim, heavily quoting Martin's original press release.[12] According to Hayes, the first of many emails suggesting Obama was a Muslim was forwarded to Snopes within hours of Sampley's story. Hayes believes that the email was likely a slightly altered version of the Sampley article, which was in turn heavily based on Martin's 2004 press release. Martin told Hayes that he got numerous calls once the emails began circulating. When the callers asked him if he wrote the release, Martin replied, "They are all my children."[1]

According to the June 28, 2008 edition of The Washington Post, political theorist Danielle Allen traced the origin of the rumors about Obama's background back to Martin's 2004 press release. In contrast to his attitude during his interview with The Nation, Martin told the Post that he wasn't "trying to smear anybody," but that it was "just an underreported story."[2]

[...]

His 1996 run for the Florida State Senate came unraveled when it was revealed that he'd named his campaign committee for his 1986 congressional run "The Anthony R. Martin-Trigona Congressional Campaign to Exterminate Jew Power in America." The revelation led the state Republican Party to renounce him. Just before the election, he assaulted two cameramen from WPTV, the NBC affiliate in West Palm Beach. He was convicted of criminal mischief and sentenced to a year in jail. He was freed pending appeal, but made personal attacks on the judge while on the way out of the courtroom. The judge held Martin in criminal contempt of court and sentenced him to seven months in jail. However, he was mistakenly let out of jail after only a month. Martin never returned, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. If he is ever arrested, he will have to serve 16 months in jail.[3] The warrant was still outstanding at least as of the time of Martin's 2008 Senate run, but he said the issue is being "resolved."[6]

Harboring fugitives for Hillraising fun. God times. But hey bad girls, don't ignore the squat white vinegary stranger waiting in the parlor (photo link: Tarpley demonstrates some of his knitting technique to interested PUMA):

In August, 2007, Webster Tarpley issued the Kennebunkport Warning, which claimed an impending "false flag attack" in America in the "coming months."[8] Controversy ensued after Jamilla El-Shafei, Cindy Sheehan, Dahlia Wasfi, and Ann Wright issued a joint-statement claiming that they did not sign this Kennebunkport Warning.[9] In response to this denial, Tarpley sent out a widely distributed and highly publicized email in which he characterized Cindy Sheehan, Anne Wright and other anti-war activists as "lying in appalling fashion" and "wretched individuals."[10][11]

Beginning in January 2008, Tarpley has warned [7] that a shift in power has taken place in the ruling class, with the Brzezinski faction and its presidential candidate Obama ascendant over the lame-duck neocons. The targets of US imperialism would now be Russia, China and its ally Pakistan, instead of Iraq, Iran and Syria.

I'll bet Webster and Tarpley could stitch together quite a colorful quilt of a New Agenda for The Neo-PUMA New Agenda Party (NAP) convention in 2009!

roar!... I mean NAP... purrr napping now. zzzzzz.

Read more about the PUMA 08 conference at Rumproast(includes photos of Andy Martin and Webster Tarpley).

-::-::-::-::-::-

4 Pandagon

At this point, you can be a feminist or you can be a PUMA, but chances are you’re not both. And that comes not just because the tiny movement is full of outsize assholes, but because the movement long ago (roughly the day it was founded) ceased being about Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a stand-in for their own vindication, a campaign and a movement onto which they parasitically latched. Nobody’s saying that they have to be happy with what happened in the primary; it’s not like losing a close race engenders the best feelings. But as anyone who’s had the misfortune to run afoul of the PUMA brigade has learned, the litany of reasons why Hillary Clinton should be the nominee keeps waning and waning in light of the far more important story here: the hurt feelings of the people who supported her and lost.

4 Hillary Clinton supporters still trying to derail Obama nomination

Published:Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Scripps Howard News Service

WASHINGTON — A massive e-mail and Internet campaign is under way aimed at derailing the nomination of Barack Obama and making Hillary Clinton the party’s standard bearer next week at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

“It’s downright nasty,” said Memphis, Tenn., superdelegate and city council member Myron Lowery, who has shared dozens of the messages he’s received with The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal newspaper.

[...]

Most of the messages Lowery has received from across the country come from Hillary supporters making the case that she won more voters’ votes in the primaries, she won bigger states, that Obama won states that won’t vote Democratic in November, and that she is the only “electable” Democrat.

“I think it’s a terrible tactic,” said Memphis delegate, Baptist minister and Shelby County, Tenn., Democratic Party Chairman Keith Norman. “We had hoped that this kind of politics, especially from within the party, would have been abandoned.”

A pledged Obama delegate, Norman noted that some of the attacks are overtly racist and that in one instance Obama was likened to “the Anti-Christ.”

4 Democratic delegates reveal 'thug tactics' by Hillary supporters

Michael Gordon of Parker City, Ind., wrote Lowery Tuesday as representative of PUMA, noting that the Obama campaign spent $56 million in July “only to lose ground to (John) McCain…

“Where Obama once got a free pass on such despicable relationships with anti-American people such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Ayers, Rezko, Soros, Pfleger, Farakkhan — the American voters are beginning to realize what a questionable and shady past this man has led,” Gordon writes.

“I think it’s a terrible tactic,” said Denver delegate and Shelby County Democratic Party Chairman Keith Norman. “We had hoped that this kind of politics, especially from within the party, would have been abandoned.”

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