Recent stories by
Steve Hammer
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Nov 25, 2008
R.I.P., Mr. Coffee
Nov 19, 2008
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Nov 4, 2008


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No laughing matter
by Steve Hammer Sep 3, 2008

I nearly cried when I found out that Hurricane Gustav had caused President Bush and Vice President Cheney to cancel their scheduled speeches at the Republican National Convention on Monday.

Before the storm hit, all the political news had been about Gov. Sarah Palin, the out-of-nowhere choice for vice presidential nominee. The media were starting a lovefest about the gun-totin’, big-oil supportin’, high-heel wearin’ governor, who apparently got the job after a single 15-minute interview with John McCain.

It made me sad that Bush and Cheney, the Two Horsemen of the Apocalypse, weren’t present to boast about their eight years of economic misery, torture and record deficit spending. It would have been entertaining to watch Cheney bite the head off a pigeon, Ozzy Osbourne-style.

After the immediate danger of the storm passed, the media had turned on Palin, who as it turns out appears to be more qualified to be a guest on Jerry Springer than to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Jerry would certainly welcome a highly religious family with a heavy-drinking father, a knocked-up teenage daughter and a mom who may or may not have covered up a previous birth but who at any rate is under investigation by law enforcement for a dispute with a former brother-in-law.

I personally have no problems with Gov. Palin. She has an extensive background of marijuana use, something that all candidates for public office should have. She is personally a very charming person who seems to freely admit that she lucked into the biggest opportunity of her life. I like that in a person.

But all the makeup, high heels and charm can’t mask the fact that her beliefs mirror those of Bush and Cheney and may even be more extreme than them. Her inspiring personal story doesn’t change the harsh reality that a McCain-Palin administration would give us four more years of the last eight years.

But instead of even more ad hominem attacks about the Republicans’ Manchurian Candidates, here’s two very important issues on which McCain and Palin are wrong and Barack Obama and Joe Biden are right.

No. 1 is the need for a comprehensive national health care program. McCain’s plan would give you a meager tax credit to purchase insurance if you can’t afford it and you’re young enough and healthy enough to buy it. If you have a pre-existing medical condition, or you’re over age 35, then McCain’s view is, “Tough shit, you’re on your own, buddy.”

That’s the Republican mantra. Unless you’re a corporate CEO, in which case you get big tax credits, or you’re a multinational corporation, in which case you get rewarded for sending jobs overseas, you’re on your own.

Can’t afford to feed your family on minimum wage? You’re on your own. Have to declare bankruptcy because your child got sick and the doctor bills piled up? You’re on your own.

Obama’s plan for health care would guarantee access to health insurance for every American. It wouldn’t be a free ride, but you’d have reasonable deductibles and co-pays and access to prescription medicine at an affordable price. You wouldn’t have to worry about losing your health insurance if you lose your job.

And you couldn’t be turned down for coverage for a pre-existing condition. Every other country treats health care as a basic human right. McCain and Palin put more importance on your right to own a gun than they do your right to affordable health care.

The second big difference between the candidates is on the Employee Free Choice Act, the bipartisan legislation that gives workers easier access to organized labor without the threat of coercion from management.

It’s already passed the House and received a majority of votes in the Senate. But Bush has vowed to veto it, as has McCain. Obama has pledged to sign the bill into law within his first 100 days in office.

With stronger unions, corporations such as Wal-Mart would no longer be able to intimidate their workers into accepting degrading and inhuman working conditions. And it would send a message to Mexico to reform its policies, thereby improving the quality of life there and driving down the need for illegal immigration.

The bill would also impose harsher penalties on companies who flout the labor laws. No wonder Wal-Mart and Verizon and Comcast are against the bill.

Those are but two examples of why we can’t afford to continue the failed policies of Bush and Cheney. And while I could riff all day about old man McCain and barely-legal running mate, I want to see America reclaim our country from the greedheads and warmongers who’ve infested Washington for the past eight years.

This stuff is too important to make jokes about.

Comments on No laughing matter
Hammer
by Josey Wales | Sep 24, 2008

The heights of stupidity which Steve Hammer is able to achieve over and over again never cease to amaze me.

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Lions, Tigers and Evil Republicans, oh my!
by Steven | Sep 7, 2008

Funny what a little ole girl can do to a campaigne huh? The news from the New York Times is Obama is set to counter Palin by dispatching women leaders around the country to criticize Sarah-Cudda Palin. It's times like this that make me wish I was a writer for Mad TV; can you imagine Obama in a witch hat (green face and all) releasing the flying monkeys! Then Hillary flies by! Then Pelosi, then Boxer! As a finale I could have Obama being killed by having a fat, talentless, angry, white liberal journalist from NUVO fall on him!

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Still No Coloring Page!
by Jack The Ripple | Sep 6, 2008

Since Kevin The Pimp chooses to allow his limp Hammer to continue to bray, let's clarify a few of his 'facts' regarding Gov. Palin. And wasn't it our Stevie who a couple of months ago was pissing and moaning since someone dared to criticize the very adult sainted Chelsea when she chose to enter the political fray? Now this sniveling fool decides to refer to her daughter as 'knocked up'? Class shows. Hammer has none nor does The Pimp. Here's the truth behind the Sarah rumors. Yes, she is Governor of Alaska. No, she’s not the Lieutenant Governor. No, she’s not currently Mayor of Wasilla. Yes, she was Mayor of Wasilla, some years ago. Yes, there are people in Alaska who think she’s too liberal. Yes, she did push for and approve the Wasilla Sports Center. Yes, it did cost a lot of money. (People keep saying $20 million, that article says $14.5 million, but then they also added a $1.2 million dollar food service/kitchen piece. This year, since Palin was out of office as Mayor.) Yes, the city went into debt to do it (how did you buy your house, bunkie?) and raised the city sales tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent to pay for it. Yes, the city is paying it off early. Yes, she did want authority to have wolves culled from the air, because they were taking too many moose and caribou. Which people hunt for food in the back country in Alaska. No, she isn’t shooting them herself. I mean, not that she couldn’t, but I’m sure she doesn’t have time. (Thanks to bluemerlin in the comments.) No, the Downs baby (Trig) isn’t Bristol’s kid, and no, the kid wasn’t born with Downs because (a) Palin flew on an airplane (b) went home to have the baby after an amniotic leak (c) because he was the result of incest between Todd Palin and Bristol. No, Track (the kid who is leaving for Iraq) didn’t join the NG because he was a drug addict. He may have joined the NG because he was tired of people saying his Mom was getting him into the good hockey leagues. (Yes, that one was original reporting. I’ve got sources in Wasilla.) No, she’s never been in any porn as far as anyone can find (and God knows I get enough google hits on those very topics.) No, no one seems to be able to even find swimsuit pictures of her from her beauty queen days; God knows I looked. The bikini pictures that are around are photoshopped, just like the Vogue cover I have up. No she wasn’t a member of the (wild-eyed libertarian) Alaska independence Party, although her husband once was No, neither the (Canadian) National Post, nor Marc Armbinder at the Atlantic have troubled themselves to issue a correction. Yes, the New York Times did finally correct their story of September 1 — on September 5. This was after Elizabeth Bumiller was quoted by Howard Kurtz as saying she was “completely confident about the story.” Yes, that was after the New York Times’s source retracted the story. Yes, this should embarrass the Times, Bumiller, and Howard Kurtz. No, there have been no signs of embarrassment. No, she was never a Pat Buchanan supporter; even when Buchanan claims she was, she was on the board of Steve Forbes’a campaign in Alaska. No, she’s not anti-semitic. In fact, she has an Israeli flag in her office. (Contrary to popular belief, the usual Evangelical thinks Israel has a right to exist, granted by God.) No, she’s doesn’t believe that the Iraq War was directed by God. Yes, she did pray that proceeding with the war was God’s will. (Ever hear the phrase “Not my will, but Thine, be done”?) No, Buchanan doesn’t support her now; in fact he’s supporting Obama. (Buchanan did think her speech was amazing, but then so do 80 percent of the people who saw it.) Or maybe not. Buchanan sure doesn’t like McCAin though. yes, she was pregnant when she got married No, so far there’s no confirmation she had an affair while she was married, and they’ve denied it pretty strongly. No, she wouldn’t be the first Christian woman who got a little on the side, if it were true. No, she wasn’t named as a co-respondent in a divorce; there’s no evidence she had an affair with her husbands’ business partner. The partner tried to have his divorce records sealed because he was being harrassed by journalists who used them to get his phone number. Yes, barring immaculate conception virgin birth (whatever), Bristol appears to have had sex with her fiancee. No, Bristol didn’t receive only “abstinence-only” sex ed. Yes, I have it on reliable report that Sarah Levi’s mom has been heard screaming “Way to go Levi!” at her future son-in-law son. No, it doesn’t appear to have been when Bristol broke the news to her family. Note: I originally understood this story to be about Sarah, not Levi’s mom, in the context of hockey games. As such, it’s shouldn’t be in a Sarah Palin Rumors story, but I like the story too much to delete it. yes, her 17 year old daughter is pregnant; no, the baby’s father is not an eighth grader; no, having sex at 16 is not statutory rape in Alaska yes, she did fire the public safety guy — but he said in the Anchorage paper that, for the record, she never, and no one else in her administration ever, tried to make him fire her ex-brother-in-law and yes, the state trooper (her sister’s ex-husband) she was worried about did: tase her 10 year old nephew; drive his state patrol car while drinking or drunk; did threaten to “bring her down”; and did threaten to murder her father and sister if they dared to get an attorney to help with the divorce. yes, the state trooper was suspended when he was put under a court protective order no, the trooper wasn’t fired yes, she did fire the Wasilla Chief of Police as Mayor; yes, it was because he was lying to the City Council. Yes, she did try to cut her own salary as Mayor by $4000 a year; yes, she had voted against the $4000 a year raise while on the City Council. No, she didn’t cut funding for unwed mothers; yes, she did increase it by “only” 354 percent instead of 454 percent, as part of a multi-year capital expenditures program. No, the Washington Post doesn’t appear to have corrected their story. Even after this was pointed out in the comments on the story. No, she didn’t cut special needs student funding; yes, she did raise it by “only” 175 percent. yes, she did try, clearly unsuccessfully, to get Bristol married off to her fiancee before the story came out yes, she did ask the librarian if some books could be withdrawn because of being offensive; no, they couldn’t; yes she did threaten to fire the librarian a month later; no, that wasn’t over the books thing but instead over administrative issues; no, the librarian wasn’t fired either; yes, the librarian was a big supporter of one of her political opponents; yes, the librarian was also the girlfriend of the Chief of police mentioned above; no, this is not the first time in the history of civilization that someone has been threatened with being fired over a political dispute No the list of books she wanted to ban that’s being passed around isn’t real; among other things, it includes a number of books published after her time in office there. No, that hasn’t actually deterred people from claiming it really is true even if the list isn’t correct. For example: “This list might not in fact reflect the books Sarah Palin wanted banned. As more than one person in Comments has pointed out, some of them were not published when Palin was in office. It is my hope that the mainstream media will not let this story drop and that at some point an actual list will surface. The very thought of having someone who once advocated book-banning possibly occupying one of the highest offices of our land fills me with profound dread. It should fill you with dread too.” No, I don’t understand why a fake list is supposed to fill me with dread, either. no, it wasn’t a shotgun wedding; Bristol and Levi been engaged for a good while according to his mother. It was either an accident or just an unconventional order. yes, she’s an was an Assembly of God Holy Roller. No, she doesn’t attend an AoG church now. Yes, she did leave the AoG because they were getting too weird for her. No, she’s not anti-Mormon. No, not all AoG churches are anti-Mormon. (AoG is even more hard-core about allowing each pastor and congregation to make their own decisions than the Baptists are.) (Thanks to AnonAmom in the comments.) No, she’s not from another planet. No, I haven’t actually heard that one yet, but you wait. yes, she apparently believes in some variant of Intelligent Design no, she didn’t try to force the schools to teach it; she said if someone brought it up, it was an appropriate subject for debate. No, she doesn’t believe in “abstinence only” education. Yes, she thinks abstinence is an effective way of preventing pregnancy. Duh. Yes, she believes kids should learn about condom use in schools. yes, she kills animals and eats them, and wears their skins yes, she was a beauty contest contestant yes, she was once a sportscaster yes, she has a college degree in Journalism, but I won’t hold that against her, as she seems to have found honest work as well yes, she sometimes wears her hair up; no that’s not a “beehive” yes, her husband is Not A White Person (he’s a Yup’ik; an Eskimo but not an Inuit as my Inuit cousins have taken some pains to explain) yes, she has on occasion tried to get money from the federal government. yes, she did finally turn down the money for the bridge. Yes, that meant changing her mind about it. yes, she was vetted extensively, not just in three days — I’ve got links to press reports about people coming to Wassila on 29 May, and we had her on our Veepstakes at PJM from the first day we ran it. yes, she want to a bunch of colleges before getting a degree. No, that’s not illegal. Yes, she seems to have made something of herself anyway. no, they didn’t talk to a lot of the R’s power structure during the vetting; that probably has to do with the fact that she beat them in elections and sent a bunch of them to jail. Yes, Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech was written by a speechwriter. Duh. No, none of Obama’s, McCain’s, nor Biden’s speeches were impromptu off the cuff things either. Yes, she did put the Governors plane on eBay. No, that’s not how it was finally sold. Yes, McCain did say it wrong. Bad McCain. No, Sarah Palin doesn’t have such control of Alaskans that people are afraid to say bad things about her. (What, are you nuts? Look at this list.) No, I don’t think it’s likely that she called Obama “Sambo”. (Good God, man, I’m ten years older than her and I barely remember “Little Black Sambo.”) Yes, I’m sure there are people who don’t like her — I’ve talked with some myself. No, she’s not a “global warming denier”, and when the crush dies down remind me to explain why the very phrasing “global warming denier” is anti-scientific, anti-intellectual, and a clear sign of a desire to impose your beliefs by coercion. But in the mean time, while I do believe that she has expressed some skepticism that warming is wholly human-caused, the existence of the Alaska Climate Change Sub-Cabinet and the Alaska Climate Change Strategy work demonstrate that she’s considering the problem and has brought together people more expert than she to advise her.

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Pity the Propaganda Believers
by Kiki | Sep 5, 2008

Mr. Hammer is an excellent example of the call for stronger education. I believe he was "left behind". His comments are uninformed and inaccurate. I would suggest he research and verify his information before forming opinions. His thoughts might be more respected then.

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Economics 101
by jgreener1 | Sep 5, 2008

I don't believe it was entirely fair to judge Sarah Palin and her family before ever listening to a word she said. To call her husband a heavy-drinker is defaming if you are not 100% sure. Because you just "met" him a couple of weeks ago, I doubt you are. The reference to her daughter is uncalled for as well. Finally, to question her credibility because of a current investigation is pointless. Most political figures go through an investigation at some point. It's partly their high profile and partly their character that cause it. I'm a member of the Realist party. I'm going to listen to everyone and make a decision based off of who I feel is going to be the best leader(s) and right person(s) for the country. I hope all Americans do. You would be attacking Joe Biden this week if there was an (R) after his name and not a (D). Give the woman a chance before you chastise her and her family. Secondly, I have to correct you in your support for third party representation. Unions breed ineffectiveness. It makes it extremely difficult for corporations to flexibly manage work flow. As labor expenses and wages increase, these multi-national corporations will have no choice to but flood their way into countries with inexpensive labor to remain competitively advantaged. I promise you thousands of jobs would be lost if Wal-Mart and other similar size corporations became unionized. If this bill comes into effect, I will gladly revisit this topic with you in two years. There used to be a place for unions. At the turn of the 1900's, they were absolutely necessary to keep workers safe. As human rights laws have become standard in life, unions serve little purpose except to collect dues on a bi-weekly basis. I would agree that unions are helpful for individual contract workers who need support from trade/skill unions to standardize their pay, but not for MNC's. When more jobs are heading overseas than there already are now, I hope you don't find a likely target with an (R) after their name to blame it on. Lastly, as a former Wal-Mart associate, I take issue with your description of their working conditions. I never once felt degraded or inhuman. Over the course of 6 years I worked with over 1,000 different Wal-Mart associates and never heard them complain about working conditions either. Being the largest company in the world, I know they are a huge target for criticism; some of it just. But so you know, working conditions are not one of them. Every Wal-Mart that opens receives at least 1,000 applications for employment. That is a fact. Do you ever wonder why they would choose to want to work in conditions as you described?

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News Flash-Hammer is an Idiot
by KParker | Sep 5, 2008

As usual, would be serious political writer Hammer takes the Democrats Godly/Republicans Evil track for his latest rant. If Palin was Democrat, she would be held up as the Independant woman and Mother of the year by the party and media. But seeing she is Republican, she is trash, befitting of only the Jerry Springer Show. Sorry, but the Clintons were the first to introduce trailer-trash antics to the Oval Office. What former president can lay claim to have left semen stains on the Oval Office carpeting? While the whole time, Hillary was "standing by her man". As far as the Springer Show, I have a better idea. Let them host John Edwards and his cancer-stricken wife. Then bring out his bi-sexual mistress and we can watch the fur fly. Now, that would be trashy.

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