Ahead of it's June 29th release, all indicators are pointing towards Michael Moore's new documentary SICKO being a success at the box office. Last weekend, all across the country were sold out.
This comes as Michael Moore released the final SICKO trailer:
Because SICKO will be perceived as less partisan than Fahrenheit 9/11, it is easier to market. In fact, the movie trailer is being projected with sound and subtitles on the near the headquarters of leading HMOs, insurance companies andhospitals in most major cities.
We are in the midst of a major electoral sea change. In 2004, Bush decisively won the rural vote by 19 points. Today, because of the Iraq war, Katrina and government corruption, Democrats now have the support of :
While the president won re-election over Democrat John Kerry by a national margin of just more than 2 percentage points, rural respondents favored him by 19 percentage points in 2004.
Thesurvey found that rural voters prefer an unnamed Democraticpresidential candidate over a Republican candidate by 46 percent to 43percent. A Democratic congressional candidate leads a Republican on ageneric ballot test by 46 percent to 44 percent. And surveyrespondents, by a 45 percent to 33 percent margin, say that Democratshave done a better job than Republicans in paying attention to “ruralissues.â€
nationwide live in rural areas -- so this sea change is pretty significant. Another that was conducted earlier this month confirmed the same trend. There is so much voter fatigue, even in the most traditionally Republican counties nationwide. They want change. The trick for Republicans is finding a candidate that they can paint as anti-Washington establishment. The front-runner to fit that mold appears to be Fred Thompson, even though in reality he was a lobbyist for twenty years, and repeatedly holds . But for the moment, conservative activists think he is above the problem.
Even so, swing voters have had enough. This rural landslide coupled with broad voter fatigue will be tough for the GOP to overcome in '08.
Less than one year after stepping down and Donald Rumsfeld is already planning to cash in. The former Secretary of Defense is looking for a so he can re-justify the Iraq war -- assuming all of us will listen:
While a deal has not yetbeen struck, Mr. Rumsfeld has toured New York publishing houses with anoutline of his book in an effort to gauge how much information he wouldhave to disclose in the memoir in order to justify a large cash advance.
A principal for the publicity firm Shirley & Banister, CraigShirley, said such a book would have a better-than-fair shot ofbecoming a bestseller if it was properly marketed, well-written, andcontained interesting new content. In addition, the publisher of theconservative imprint Regnery, Marji Ross, estimated the formersecretary would command at least a six-figure advance. Someone like Mr.Rumsfeld, who has a loyal following and yet sparks a lot ofcontroversy, is good for book sales, she said.
According to , Rumsfeld also met with the book publishing company Penguin last month.
So it's pretty clear that Donald Rumsfeld intends to rewrite his own legacy, and make money doing it -- sort of a sweet two-for-one deal. He may only succeed on the latter. But Rumsfeld cannot stop history from judging him as a failure. He tried to fight a war on the cheap. The military did not like him. His war strategy failed. I'd say his place in history is already sealed.
Just as governments throughout the world begin rushing to find ways to conserve energy, are planning to invest . Translation: there will soon be more supply, and less of an incentive for Washington establishment types to take action:
Opec member countries plan to invest about$130 billion by 2012 to raise oil output in order to meet risingdemand, said Mohammed bin Dha'en Al Hamili, Opec President and UAEMinister of Energy.
Addressingthe 10th annual executive East-Meets-West conference, which isorganised by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) in Istanbul,he said another $500 billion is planned to be invested in productioncapacity expansion and the provision of other oil relatedinfrastructure between 2013 and 2020.
Hamili called for mutual understanding and cooperation among producing and consuming nations and for transparency on the issues involving supply and demand.
"AllOpec members are developing countries with huge competing developmentalneeds. Their total gross domestic product in 2005 was $1.4 trillion.The value of their total exports was $ 703 billion of which oilaccounted for $ 512 billion or over 70 per cent. Opec member countrieshave over 900 billion barrels or more than 78 per cent of the totalproven crude oil reserves of 1.2 trillion barrels," he said.
OPEC stands for the . It was formed in 1960 thanks to a partnership between Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. There are obviously more members today. Countries that rely on OPEC the most, such as the United States, prefer to have a say in the domestic politics within each of those countries. Fittingly, those five have been military trouble spots over the last generation -- at the same time as oil demand continues to rise.
As I post each morning, here are some of the political stories thatmight not be worthy of their own posts, but are nonetheless newsworthy:
Michael Moore will appear on the Wednesday night, and on this Friday to promote his new movie .
: 38% of Republican-leaning voters now oppose the Iraq war.
In 1960, the to kill Cuban president Fidel Castro.
Following Repoublican Senator Richard Lugar's comments in support of troop redeployment, Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) chimed in as well. to the White House asking for "a comprehensive plan for our country's gradual military disengagement" from Iraq. He added, "I am also concerned that we are running out of time." Senator John Warner (R-VA) is coming around as well. He called Lugar's comments about Iraq "an important and sincere contribution" to the debate.
The White House has agreed to with Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN), who voiced support of the Democratic plan to redeploy troops out of Iraq.
Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) reiterated his idea to if he continues to insist he is not part of the Executive Branch. "The vice president has a choice to make," Emanuel said. "If he believeshis legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of theexecutive branch."
On Tuesday night, billionaire businessman for Hillary Clinton. They raised about $1 million for her presidential campaign.
Rudolph Giuliani is former President Bill Clinton of not doing enough to respond to the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centers. (Even though Clinton had prosecuted all that were involved, and no al Qaeda link was discovered until years later.)
Even though Al Gore is not running for president, some of his supporters are , which features updated news stories about the former Vice President.
Elizabeth Edwards confronted conservative columnist Ann Coulter over the phone today on . The wife of John Edwards took offense to made by Coulter yesterday on Good Morning America. Coulter said of Edwards, "I'll just wish he'd been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."
Today, Elizabeth called in and asked for Ann to apologize on Hardball. You might guess how that went:
EDWARDS: You're asking us to participate in a dialogue that is based on hatefulness and ugliness, instead of on the issues. And I don't think that's serving them or this country very well.
{applause from audience}
MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Elizabeth Edwards. So do you want to -- you have all the time in the world to respond.
COULTER: I think we've heard all we need to hear. The wife of a presidential candidate is asking me to stop speaking.
This turned out to be a net-positive for both Elizabeth and Coulter. Elizabeth stood up for her husband, and will obviously use this as a way to rally her supporters. Coulter, as impolite as she always is, will probably include this exchange in her next column.
Elizabeth is right that the political tone in this country needs improvement. In this exchange, she clearly came across as the more mature of the two -- that is an understatement.
A few days ago, the Richardson Campaign released their own that put him in third place, narrowly ahead of Barack Obama and just a few points behind Hillary Clinton. Of course, strategically speaking, every campaign would release their own polling data if it made their candidate look better.
But other polls are showing a similar gain for Richardson. No, the New Mexico Governor is not in third. However, he is gaining fast. A new , due for release over the next few days, shows Richardson gaining ground:
IOWA DEMOCRATS
John Edwards - 26% Barack Obama - 21% Hillary Clinton - 20% Bill Richardson - 11%
Little-by-little, Richardson is crawling into the top-tier. He is not there yet. Though, he has something going for him. The Southwest is Richardson's strong area, being that he is the Governor of New Mexico. Luckily, in 2008 Nevada heads to the polls right after Iowa, and just days before New Hampshire. Look for Richardson's Campaign to focus almost all of its resources on Iowa and Nevada. If he were to win one of those two contests, the added media hype could vault him ahead in other early states, such as New Hampshire, South Carolina and California.
Every time I sit down to come up with a new editorial cartoon, I start with the same basic question: “What’s the most important (or interesting) issue in the news today?†In past years, this question prompted many answers — and cartoons on a wide range of topics. But, recently, two answers just keep popping up: 1. George W. Bush, who I firmly believe to be the worst president in U.S. history, and 2. his misbegotten boondoggle of a war in Iraq. And, while I don’t want to become a two-note commentator (one really, as those two topics are so inextricably linked at this point), those are without question the most compelling matters of this time. This week’s cartoon, “A Matter of Focus†[Archive No. 0723], wrestles with this dilemma, while also noting several important issues that keep getting demoted to the backburner. One housekeeping note before signing off: I wasn’t able to cartoon last week, so I decided not to send out a Weekly Editorial Cartoon E-mail. I’m finding I’ve been finishing, on average, a cartoon four out of five weeks this year. I’m hoping the pace will pick back up in the fall, but, in the meantime, it seems silly to send out an e-mail saying I’m not sending out a cartoon. That’s all for this week.
Cheers, Andrew toon@offthewahl.com
Andrew Wahl is a cartoonist for the Wenatchee World newspaper. He submits political cartoons to The Blue State each week.
The reports that today Barack Obama will unveil two television ads in the state of Iowa. One is 30 seconds, while the other is one minute long. Each highlights his background in community organizing, constitutional law and draws upon messages from his 2004 Democratic Convention speech. Most of all, the video indirectly paints Obama as someone that remains free from the grips of the Washington establishment.
Here are the ads, starting with the 30-second one first:
And here is the longer one:
The Obama Campaign hopes these television spots will jump-start their candidate's popularity in Iowa, a state that in just about every poll. Obama has a passionate group of supporters in Iowa. But the challenge has been his campaign's inability to do an effective job of branching out to a wider group of potential supporters.
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