More nuts:
Former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is on the political comeback trail again. This time, she’s running for president.
In a speech posted on her campaign Web site, runcynthiarun.org, McKinney, 52, ended weeks of speculation and officially announced her run as a Green Party candidate. She sounded the theme “Come Home To The Green Party” while attacking both major parties as supporters of the war in Iraq and tools of corporate interests.
On the upside for Democrats, she will not steal a lot of votes from the Dem. candidate a la Nader. On the downside, I might be forced to hear her deep thoughts.
Bombadil
Not to worry — if she shows up at a debate, she’ll probably forget to wear her “No, really, I am a candidate!” badge, and someone will try to stop her, she’ll try to beat the crap out of him, and it will all be on film.
Good times.
Nikki
Dear god.
grumpy realist
Oh dear….are we going to have to hear about Teh Hairstyle again?
I usually vote Democratic Party (less of two evils maxim) but this woman is just….weird.
demimondian
Oh, come on, John. You live for this: Cynthia McKinney, Cindy Sheehan, Mike Gravel, -Tom Tancredo- … you live for the nuts in the political granola, and you know it.
Robert Johnston
I don’t think you have to worry too much about that. The chances that she runs a serious enough campaign to get invited to a debate that doesn’t include every crazy third party candidate under the sun are quite low. Well, perhaps FOX News would invite her for a three-way just to see a tag team on the Democratic candidate, but hopefully the Democratic nominee will have the good sense not to show at a FOX News debate, and if not that much sense at least enough not to show up to a FOX News debate where third party candidates are invited.
RLaing
Mind you, her description of the Repubs and Defeatocrats is bang on the money. The fact that Americans continue to vote for these clowns indicates either that they are satisfied with such politicians, or that they are too stupid to understand what they are doing. My money is on the latter, but place your bets wherever you like.
Dreggas
Keys/McKinney Unity ’08 bitches!
Dreggas
You think that’s bad? Huckabee’s now the candidate of the Christian Reconstructionists.
Psycheout
Maybe McKinney can slap her way to the top. Maybe she could run with Ron Paul. They both think 9/11 was an inside job.
Jake
Dreggas, you mispelled Lunacy.
I don’t have a problem with third, fourth, fifth party candidates (provided they don’t try to whack people with their cell phones). I just wish more non-Ds/Rs would run for Congress. They’d have a better chance and would make things far more interesting.
Incertus (Brian)
Well, she’s got to find a way to get some attention. She won’t get much, that’s for certain.
The Grandest Panjandrum
My favorite McKinney moment was when Gollum’s Wife interviewed her for a TV show she used to do. (the other crazy MM, if you will.) Rod Serling could not have written a better script for The Twilight Zone.
Does she still wear the sneakers? Or, were they just for chasing down Capitol Police Officers?
Tsulagi
Probably not going to see her much. This time around the Goopers don’t have enough cash for shits and giggles to fund the Green Party.
scarshapedstar
Remember when that nutjob was screaming that Bush stole the 2000 election and was going to drive the country off a cliff?
Boy, was she ever insane.
bob
McKinney’s most controversial stuff before 2002 seem to be opposing the first Gulf War and impicating George Bush in the events of 9/11. Frankly, Gulf War I was a travesty perpetrated by Bush Sr. And while I don’t subscribe to any “9/11 truth” theories, there are an awful lot of questions. Such as: how on earth did 4 airplanes get hijacked at approximately the same time, fly for over an hour into 3 of 4 intended targets in the most heavily protected airspace in the world without military response? Don’t we have fighter planes anymore? There are many other such questions. So………. it seems to me all this crap about McKinney has been a response to her anti-Bushism. The anti-semitism is pretty weird, but AIPAC does have quite a bit of influence in our government and we know Israel has spied on us. I know damned well I never heard of her until she opposed Bush after his appointment and she accused the Florida election of being crooked. Funny how she was right about that.
akaoni
This is the thing. Yes McKinney has had some a couple of episodes during her terms in Congress. That said, look at her positions. Who has been right more often than not, the mainstream “serious” candidates or McKinney and the rest of the “loony left”? The answer might scare you.
KCinDC
She’ll have to be selected by the Green Party as their candidate before you have to worry about her showing up at debates. Not sure what the likelihood of that is.
jcricket
Yeah, my first reaction is to think McKinney is a loon, but as John has pointed out recently, the “dirty fucking hippies” were right disturbingly often.
If we ever get a chance to actually investigate, I’m sure we will find most of the scandals are worse than we imagine/know about (attorney firings, politicization of NASA/FDA/EPA/FCC/FTC, RNC email deletion, Abramoff, etc.). They fight so hard for secrecy because they’re guilty as fuck.
bob
Frankly, I believe McKinney has been LABELLED a loon by republicans. If she is a little eccentric in her exposition of her views, well, I can’t help that. Fact is she has been right on an awful lot of stuff.
Robert Johnston
People who are right on specific issues for the manifestly wrong reasons are much more dangerous than people who are wrong on specific issues but reason soundly. They have a tendency to end up being wrong for the wrong reasons the next time around, and, because their reasoning is so weak, they can’t be reasoned with when that happens.
Minor–and even oftentimes major–policy disagreements with sane person ‘A’ are no reason to vote for insane person ‘B’ whom you happen, by sheer accidental luck of the draw, to agree with on a few issues of substance. You can almost always pull a sane politician back from the brink, but the loonies will drive over whatever cliff happens to be in front of them.
bob
As for the snark about her and the Capitol Police, try reading the US Constitution, specifically Article I, Section 6. What part of SHALL NOT BE SUBJECT TO ARREST, don’t you get? If a capitol cop can’t recognize one of 435 members of congress on sight, then I have to question his abilities of observation or his long term memory. I mean, come on. HOW MANY BLACK FEMALE CONGRESSMEN ARE THERE? Jeez, how fucking stupid cops appear to be.
bob
jcricket, you have a point. But I’ve heard a lot of people SAY she’s crazy without any real corroboration. I can’t find much of her being crazy until she correctly stated the Florida election of 2000 was stolen. From that point on she was the CRAAAAAAAAZY Cynthia McKinney. Show me something from 92-2000 that has her being labelled nuts.
bob
sorry, I meant Robert Johnson
Psycheout
Fixed. No need to thank me.
Psycheout
Amen. This applies to nuts like Ron Paul and Cynthia McKinney.
Jen
Yeah, she should be able to change her hair every day and still phone-slap any cop who doesn’t recognize her! Power to the people, bitch!
I’ll leave you all with my favorite deep thought:
“If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you’ll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.”
Michael D.
Cynthia McKinney v. Alan Keyes in a debate. I would pay to see that!
bob
I still don’t see anyone showing me that she was crazy before calling the 2000 election crooked. Cite ANYTHING.
Zifnab
Oh for the love of god, that is the most gigantic load of crap. Ralph Nader did not steal the election from anyone. He didn’t stand behind the five SCOTUS judges and twist their arms to prevent a recount. He didn’t screw up the ballots to get thousands of little old ladies to accidentally vote for Pat Buchanan. His run didn’t affect the tens of millions of Americans who DID vote for Gore, nor did his candidacy prevent Al Gore from promoting his own Green creds more openly. And the thousand-odd votes that went to Nader in ’00 would not have automatically gone into Gore’s pocket – just as likely the Green Voters would have voted for another down-ticket marginal Green-friendly Presidential long shot or even just stayed home.
This “if not for Nadar, Gore would have won” myth is the most hackneyed and pathetic smear that just won’t die. After a Bill Clinton sex scandal and “I invented the internet” bullshit memes, and vote rigging, and voter suppression, and cheap political stunts on all sides, anyone who still honestly insists that it was all Ralph Nader’s fault that Bush upset Gore in ’00 is either deliberately obtuse or a bitter whiny DLC-kissing apologist chump.
Mike
This is Ralph “I Still don’t see any difference between the parties” Nader you’re defending? Give it up.
bob
And why shouldn’t she be able to change her hairstyle when she wants and for any reason that pleases her? She didn’t change her face, and the cop touched her first. Again, read Article I Section 6 of the Constitution.
dslak
“Nader didn’t steal the election from Gore” is not necessarily a defense of Ralph.
Dug Jay
Finally, a sock puppet NOT involving Glenn Greenwald. This ‘bob’ one absolutely has to be a sock puppet from McKinney’s group….or possibly an escapee from the Georgia State Home for the Mentally Deranged.
bob
Dug Jay, cite ONE instance of her being labelled crazy before 2001. Just one. I’m waiting. I’m not from Georgia, I don’t really give a shit about McKinney. All I know is I never heard of her before she called the 2000 election crooked. From then on she has been CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY. So, Mr Sock Puppet, instead of insulting me, show me where I’m wrong.
Dug Jay
bob, you’re merely proving my point, namely that you are some kind of raving lunatic who probably shouldn’t be permitted near sharp objects or matches. Based on what you have written here, I personally think that Ms. McKinney is likely a whole lot saner than you.
bob
Dug Jay, instead of insulting me show me an instance of where she was CRAAAAAAZY Cynthia before 2001. I’m waiting. Again, I don’t really give a shit about her. But John Kerry shot himself, Max Cleland is Saddam, Al Gore invented the internet and Cynthia McKinney is crazy. See a pattern there?
Zifnab
I’m not defending Nader’s belief. I’m defending his right to run. Nader didn’t spoil the election or ruin things for the country by putting his name on the ballot. Gore had every opportunity and more to steal away Green Party supporters from Nader, but he deliberately down played his Green Cards so as to not freak out conservative America.
As for your “there’s no difference” quip, I think we just had a thread a few steps down about this. So far the 110th Congress has: Funded Iraq, voted on non-binding fluff about how much they love Christmas, failed on immigration, failed on the energy bill, damn near almost gave telecomms amnesty, passed billions in pork, allowed the DHS continue to wallow in corruption, failed to nail Abu Gonzo or get traction on the attorney firings, failed to subpeona millions of White House documents while the paper shredders roll, passed a resolution condemning a major anti-War organization’s disdain for a lying skunk of a General, and otherwise wasted our collective time.
I’m sorry, but I’m just not seeing a big difference between the 109th Rubber Stampers and the 110th Roll-over Caucus. Nader was absolutely right. We needed better politicians back in ’00. Smarter, liberaler, greener politicians. They didn’t exist, but the politicians who did rolled right over in 2000 and let Bush waltz into office despite massive verifiable voter fraud and dirty tricks. And those same politicians rolled over in ’02/’03 in the run up to the war. And we ran one of those roll-over politicians in ’04 for President, and he got rolled over too.
So now, after rolling over in 2000 and rolling over in 2002 and rolling over in 2004 and winning a landslide election only to roll over in 2006, we’re looking at 2008 and talking about how “Oh no! Let’s not get tough! Let’s not get truly progressive! Let’s not repeat the sins of Ralph Nader that we committed eight years ago because things have gone so fucking well since then!”
I take it you’re one of the ass-kissing chumps, Mike.
Dug Jay
I rest my case.
AnonE.Mouse
With her confrontational style,Cynthia McKinney is not a threat to be named Miss Congeniality,particularly by AIPAC.But from what I see upthread,most of the negative comments seem to be shaped by the common media misrepresentation of her rather than on anything substantive,much like what I saw with Hugo Chavez on previous threads.Is there anyone reading who can answer bob’s challenge and provide any actual content as to what makes her “nuts” relative to the present congress or administration?
Jen
Nah, Zif, that election was like the Titanic, change any one of a dozen or so things and you change the whole disaster. Unfortunately, Nader was one of those things. Gore lost Florida by 500 or so votes, and Nader got, what, 30,000 votes in Florida? Too lazy to look it up, but it was a lot more than 500.
No, it isn’t “all” his fault, but I just don’t see how you’re going to get around the Florida thing.
cleek
anyone wanna bet he hasn’t ?
bob
Oh, I see, Dug Jay is an asshole republican who CAN’T cite anything to back it up. Seems none of her other critics can do it either. How about it John, show me how she is nuts PRIOR to 2001.
numbskull
I’m no fan of McKinney, but just from what I’ve seen here, none of her detractors seem to be able to actually point to things that she’s done that are crazy. Also, what policies did she espouse while in Congress that were so crazy. Finally, what actual statements did she make that were crazy or turned out to be substantively wrong? Proof? Actual quotes? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
And let’s face it, if the resident loons (DJ, Pscho, et al) are knee-jerk against her, that at least raises the possibility that she was smeared.
BTW, Psycho, you were going to tell us how a rape victim cashes in by starting a nonprofit foundation. I see that she had the guts to testify before Congress today. You don’t happen to work for the DOJ, do you? They were no-shows, too…
Jen
Dug Jay is a spoof.
Meds can be a wonderful thing, Bob.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that in the days prior to Christmas, some folks may have better things to do then trawl the internet for McKinney articles. She’s just as sane as you are, ok? Send her a donation for her campaign.
Jen
Psycho’s a spoof, too. Read his blog.
Psycheout
Tancredo officially dropped out and endorsed Mittens. D’oh! The only reason for that that I can fathom is that they both hired illegal aliens to work at their respective mansions.
bob
Meds? So I’m crazy like McKinney? Cite some proof, Jen. You haven’t answered my question anyway. Show me where Cynthia McKinney was ever called crazy before 2001. Back it up. Then we can discuss my sanity. All I can say is you anti McKinney types don’t have ANYTHING to back up your opinion. You call people who question the narrative crazy with NOTHING behind it.
Dug Jay
One of the very few pieces of proposed legislation Ms. McKinney ever introduced. Needless to say, it received no co-sponsors and went absolutely nowhere.
bob
Oh, sorry Jen, I thought you were being insulting. I really don’t give a shit about McKinney. I just wonder if she really is crazy, when the crazies are the ones calling her crazy.
Psycheout
LOL Dug! Good day, sir!
Psycheout
Sorry folks, Jen is a very obvious parody. I happen to know who’s beind that particular sockpuppet. You’re being played for suckers.
Punchy
What are they reconstructing?
Psycheout
Oh, was I? I’m sorry. It’s already been addressed. Stop stalking me, weirdo.
Bulworth
Well, I’m glad the “speculation” about McKinney’s intentions are finally over.
Jen
Psycho, get OFF of my leg or I will get you fixed, do you hear me?
Look, I’m a lawyer. I know what the Constitution says, some of it, anyway. I think hitting a cop because he didn’t recognize you in your new hairstyle, Representative or no, is asshole behavior. I don’t really feel the need to cite proof that it is asshole behavior.
Mike
Zifnab
Ah yes:
House Resolution 404. I remember it well.
Psycheout
bob, show us when you were ever declared sane. And you might want to empty your drool bucket. Get some help from the attendents if you have trouble removing your coat that buttons in the back.
bittern
Jen, W is a spoof, not Dug Jay. Dug Jay is a run-of-the-mill piler-onner. He’ll run away if folks don’t back him up. Dime a dozen. Please allow bob to demand a fair hearing for the vilified one.
Dug Jay
Perhaps this Link will work.
Dug Jay
LINK to McKinney Proposed Legislation
Jen
Okay, that’s pretty good.
Dreggas
I don’t think she’s crazy for thinking that the 00 election was rigged, I think she was crazy because she thinks the gov’t had something to do with the death of Tupac
C’mon…everyone knows the Rampart division of the LAPD did it on orders from their secret cabal of Hip Hop kingpins!
Dreggas
Damn it Dug Jay beat me to it only because I was too busy laughin at the posts.
Psycheout
Who’s W? Are you accusing our President of being a spoof? Are you mad?
Psycheout
Tupac is dead? Oh noes, I wasn’t told. Long live Pac-Man.
demimondian
No, Psicko — W doesn’t refer to the president. I realize that you’re obsessed that the left cares about the current denizens of the white house, but, really, we’re looking past that.
Cain
So no open thread, but Sully posted a really fucked up account of an icelandic woman entering the united states who overstayed her visa by 3 weeks. Holy shit.. I can’t imagine what that would be like.
ugh!
After reading that I think we need to ask the candidates if this is the kind of country we have turned into.
cain
Shygetz
Cynthia McKinney was the one who publically questioned Al Gore’s “negro tolerance level” in 2000. That nuts enough for you, bob?
numbskull
Still running away from yourself, huh, Psycho? It won’t work, you’ll still be the same hopeless, shallow, self-loathing human in the morning.
Can’t support your claims about McKinney (hell, this is an EASY one). Can’t tell us how a rape victim cashes in on her nonprofit. Sad, sad, Psycho.
Dug Jay
cain, as any objective observer could tell from her picture, she was likely a very dangerous person warranting the most extreme care.
On the other hand, Icelanders, particularly hot blondes, are noted for exaggeration.
Psycheout
dumbskull, get off my leg, to coin a phrase.
Psycheout
LEAVE THE HOT BLONDES ALONE!!one!11!!!
Bob In Pacifica
Sorry, McKinney and Sheehan are two different movements. McKinney will disrupt things but won’t get many votes. If anything, she’ll drive votes away from the Greens. Sheehan, with a minimal organization and a campaign, could easily scare Pelosi. There are a lot of people in the City who are very angry at Nancy. Remember San Francisco is the city that had a runoff election for Mayor between Dianne Feinstein and Dead Kennedys’ lead singer Jello Biafra. Too bad the wrong person won that election.
Tsulagi
You got that right, Zif. How could you blame Nader? The brilliance of voters like Michael Moore and Bill Maher pulling a lever for Nader because Gore wasn’t green enough is readily apparent. No doubt they were on Bush’s short list for War Czar with that level of grand stratergeric thinking.
OTOH, I’m starting to understand that action. The frustration that can get you there. On one side, next fall there will be candidate from the Party of Not-Gay Jesus Fellaters. On the other, a candidate from the Party of Sternly Worded Letters. Ron Paul is looking better all the time.
Robert Johnston
Honestly, it’s hard to show because she accomplished so little as a Congresswoman that there’s not much of a record. She didn’t do anything worth taking notice of until she became a 9/11 truther–the only legislation she sponsored that ever became law (at a quick glance; I could be wrong) was to rename a post-office (Public Law 107-86, enacted in 2001), and everyone knew that the Florida screwed up the 2000 Presidential election so I don’t see it as notable that she joined in the chorus.
She had some quirky pet causes–she, for example introduced a really bad bill allowing for multi-member congressional districts (not necessarily a bad idea, but the way she wanted to implement it was completely incoherent and logically impossible) on a regular basis–and didn’t seem to do much outside of that. She appears to have had some pretty kooky things to say about anthrax vaccinations in the military (obviously this is not pre-2001), and the impression I’ve gotten is that she’ll buy into any kooky conspiracy theory no matter how ridiculous–not just the 9/11 truther crap–so long as it’s a theory that makes Bush et al. look bad.
Now she’s running for President as a Green, which is pretty damn kooky in and of itself. Largely though, I’ll admit that I’ve just never seen McKinney give a speech in which she sounded like she was all there to me. There just doesn’t seem to be a coherent narrative to her thoughts when she speaks. Her prepared speeches come off as stream of consciousness. She seems driven a lot more by her anger at the right than her passion for any left-wing causes; she’s abusive of people on the left who care more about doing good than getting revenge, now falling into the trap of equating them with Republicans–hence joining the Green party; and she seems to have therefore forgotten why she would have gotten into public service in the first place. This is what leads her into wacko-conspiracy-theory land. I’ve never gotten impressions like these from any other Democratic politician, though I find it’s commonplace among Republicans. I feel about McKinney the same way I feel about Republicans who believe that Vince Foster was murdered, or about Mike Huckabee for how he set a murderous Wayne Dummond free in what can only be described as a bout of complete disconnect with reality.
I’ll admit there’s a large subjective element to calling her crazy, and if you don’t share that belief, that’s fine, but it’s not one I’m going to back down from.
demimondian
Oh, looky! The thread now have Trooly Kooky Cooties indeed! It’s Bob in Deceptiva!
Hey, really, Bob, you need to go back to the Texas Book Repository. They need you there.
MikeL
Is it just me, or is Psycheout getting more psychotic and belligerent by the week?
Dreggas
Nah, he just needs to take his ritalin.
demimondian
Eh, as the parent of a child with profound ADHD at the start of a long and painful sequence of disabilities, I’ll thank you to not make such jokes…
Besides, you meant Thorazine.
Dreggas
Well, on one hand sorry for your child and sorry for getting the wrong drug. On the other as someone who’s medicated for various mental issues I guess I just joke about this stuff rather than let it get to me…
demimondian
Isn’t that what I just did? Although I confess I’m more defensive of demi-middle than I am of myself.
MikeL
On second thought, Psycheout is probably just under a lot of stress. Christmas can have that effect on some people. Might I suggest a nice relaxing swim? I have a whole roll of cling wrap right here, he can have it!
Dreggas
I took it as being more serious but then again it’s text on a screen.
LOL.
bob
Robert, I really don’t know much about her. I don’t really care that much, but I always question when the right wing smear machine goes after anyone. Yeah, she seems a little loose, but there are enough things that she has been right about and compared to, say, Tom Delay, I’d say she’s not a total idiot.
The Other Steve
Just saw this on CNN. Considering I live near I-35, I’m surprised I have not heard of these nuts before.
http://www.lightthehighway.org
Apparently I-35 was foretold by the Bible in Isaiah Chapter 35! And the Evangelicals are going to pray for all of us.
AnonE.Mouse
I asked you provide some evidence that McKinney is “nuts” compared to the current congress and administration,who are responsible for the Patriot Act,the AUMF and the resulting debacle in Iraq,bankruptcy “reform”,the Medicare drug bill,the MCA,proclaiming that a foreign military force is a ‘terrorist’ organization and Christmas is good,and currently attempting to give retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that may have illegally assisted the government in illegally spying on any of us here.
Yeah.McKinney’s nuts.
And that’s how consent is manufactured.
bob
Anon, don’t go quoting Chomsky now, or some drooler might say you hate ‘Murka.
AnonE.Mouse
I expect it from the droolers.
It’s the otherwise insightful people who can’t see who’s making the noise behind the curtain I find puzzling.
Svensker
I know it’s beating a dead cashew, but how on EARTH do you get away with calling anyone nuts?
kate r
I keep picturing a white guy in a suit hauling off and punching a capitol guard who wouldn’t let him through. I think the puncher be called “hot-tempered” and “idiot” and maybe “stressed out” by his supporters, but crazy? I dunno. (Oh, and “racist” if the guard was black and he was white or the other way around)
Nuts? Naw.
Toss the cashew claim at the people who think God is talking directly to them and telling them what to do.
ON the other hand, I couldn’t care less what anyone calls the silly woman. On yet another hand, like bob, I do think the why and who is sort of interesting–but that’s true of any smirching that feels like a semi-hidden campaign of dirt-throwing. After all this time on the internet, I’m learning that the *original* smirchers are often more suspect that smirchees.
kate r
and no, I don’t John Cole is Out to Get Cynthia. I don’t imagine she’s worth the time.
It was a general sort of an observation-who is the one who drags the stuff into the light became kind of interesting a couple of weeks ago (or was it only last week?) when the cry went out that “the mainstream Republicans are Trying to Smear Huckabee!” by bringing up his loopy 1992 statements about AIDS.
Were they really the ones to remind everyone Huckabee said that? I don’t know, but that’s kind of interesting. That’s what makes election season circus entertainment.
mostest
Robert Johnston Says:
mostest
Robert Johnston Says:
In other words, you don’t have to be smart to be right.
Kynn
Nothing’s really crazy about McKinney.
There, I said it.
Dave_Violence
If they can get McKinney to switch parties, that is, run as a “maverick” republican, it would be even slicker than getting Huckabee on the front page of the New York Times every day…