VIDEO: Carly Fiorina's new (bizarre) ad targets Barbara Boxer

By GottaLaff

From the makers of the Evil Sheep campaign ad.... Another very bizarre video:




Carly Fiorina's media person is the Ed Wood of politics.

Then again, this ad got my attention, and will most likely be played and replayed on all the usual cable and Sunday talk shows.

Barbara Boxer Supported by Challenger's Former Company, Hewlett-Packard

By GottaLaff

Oh, suh-nap!

The Sacramento Bee reports that Hewlett-Packard's political action committee has given the maximum amount to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) but hasn't contributed toward its own former CEO, Carly Fiorina (R), campaign finance reports show.

That's gotta hurt.

Video- Senator Boxer: Maybe men need to get an insurance rider for Viagra?

Hell no, just ban it completely.

Barbara Boxer calls out the hypocrites

By GottaLaff

Barbara Boxer just now on the Senate floor (I'm watching the health care debate on CSPAN2):

"I find it amazing that the first person Senators call when they're in trouble with their work is an attorney... They pay the best attorney, they pay a high price." [slightly paraphrased]

New rule: Nail the hypocrites.

Video- The Ed Show: Senator Boxer talks health care reform

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I don't know what to think about this other than it's reminiscent of GWB and his "hard work" mantra. Bubble living at it's finest.

Michael Hiltzik: The new Carly Fiorina...."As a cancer survivor, she'd be uninsurable."

By GottaLaff

Rushing to work, so a few excerpts and this link to a good piece on the joke that is Carly Fiorina:

Carly Fiorina’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate, which she formally announced Wednesday, will put this notion to the test. Specifically: Can someone who has spent the last few years running from her checkered record as a big-business CEO, shown so little interest in politics that she consistently failed to vote and has at best a tenuous grasp of such major issues as healthcare reform prevail in a statewide California election? [...]

She reviewed her bona-fides as a glamorous business leader, reminding the audience of her tenure as chairwoman and chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co. starting in 1999, without making too much of the fact that she was fired by the Hewlett-Packard board in 2005, or that its stock declined by 60% on her watch. She mentioned that HP is now one of the country's leading high-tech companies, but managed not to give too much credit to her successor, Mark Hurd, who led the turnaround.

But she may not have succeeded in settling the riddle of whether she's really serious about politics. Already she has been embarrassed by the disclosure that she failed to vote in 75% of California state elections since 2000, including all gubernatorial elections and presidential primaries.

In her Register op-ed, Fiorina explained that this was because "I felt disconnected from the decisions made in Washington and, to be honest, really didn't think my vote mattered because I didn't have a direct line of sight from my vote to a result."

Yet during her reign at Hewlett-Packard, according to public records, her corporation spent $4.7 million to lobby Congress and donated more than $390,000 to political candidates through its political action committee. Fiorina and her husband, Frank, a former AT&T executive, have made more than $100,000 in political donations personally since 2000.

That suggests not that Fiorina "felt disconnected" from what was going on in Washington, but rather that she understood all too well that in politics, money talks. Why bother to vote when you can get what you need with greenbacks? [...]

It's evident from her campaign material that she plans to use her experience as a cancer survivor -- she says she successfully completed chemo and radiation treatment for breast cancer -- as an entree into the healthcare reform debate. Yet her approach to this issue so far is less than compelling. [...]

Cross-state health insurance wouldn't affect Fiorina, because as she acknowledged Wednesday, she gets her medical care through her husband's AT&T retirement plan.

Therefore it's my duty to explain to her what would happen if she were an average person who lost that AT&T coverage and had to replace it in an individual market where the insurers could sell it to her on their own terms, subject to the rules of the most lenient and consumer-unfriendly states: As a cancer survivor, she'd be uninsurable.

Fiorina doesn't really have to worry about that, because her $40-million walkaway package from Hewlett-Packard enables her to be her own health insurer, if need be. [...]

So here's the tally thus far on Fiorina the candidate: Business celebrity with an equivocal record, cancer survivor with a secure employer-sponsored health plan, "problem-solving" candidate spouting ancient Republican nostrums. I can hardly contain my excitement.

Zing!

Carly Fiorina Faces Questions Over Iran Sales

By GottaLaff

Not much of a start if she's trying to beat my very popular senator:

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina (R), who is ramping up challenge to Sen. Barbra Boxer (D-CA) in 2010, oversaw a company that sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of products to Iran, sidestepping a U.S. ban on trade with the country, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

Fiorina declined an interview request.

Yeah, well, oops there, huh Carly? I'd decline an interview too, had I broken a U.S. ban, especially that one.

Vitter: GOP can block 'any' climate change bill; Boxer, Reid delay Senate action 'til September

By GottaLaff

Do these vacuum-headed Rushpublics realize that without effective and swift climate change legislation, the world is more likely to, you know, curl up and die? Who will privatize the world, discriminate against minorities, initiate preemptive wars, and scoff at health care reform if nobody's around?

Republicans are able to stop any climate change bill resembling the one passed by the House on the Senate floor, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) declared Thursday.

"I'm predicting — at least as we speak now — that we can kill any major climate change legislation on the Senate floor, and prevent this massive utility and energy tax on every American from going into effect," Vitter said during an interview with a conservative news program.

And this discouraging report:

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, is now telling reporters that she won’t have a climate and energy bill ready for a vote in her committee until September, a significant delay for the legislation. [...]

Asked whether the delay would be a major setback for the the bill, Boxer was dismissive. “Not a bit ... we’ll be in until Christmas, so I’m not worried about it,” she said.

Does Vitter realize that there will be fewer diaper outlets if the world population shrivels up? And speaking of shriveling up... Nah. I won't go there, not even at Vitter's expense.

Oops. Too late.

H/t: Christy Harvey

VIDEO: Barbara Boxer is… Dr. Evil?

By GottaLaff

First, today's Twit-O'-the-Day:

If you look closely at the image above, you'll see it says "driving hard to unseat Barbara Boxer in 2010" on the left. Good luck with that.

Now::drum roll:: the mother of lame-o videos:



H/t: Warren P (Token12ga on Twitter)

Carly Fiorina Considering Senate Bid

By GottaLaff

Once one fails in the business world, who wouldn't want to give one's all in attempting an epic fail in the political universe:

In the "strongest signal yet of her political ambitions," Carly Fiorina (R) said that she is "seriously considering" challenging Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in next year's California Senate race, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

A Field Poll conducted in late February showed Boxer with a large lead, 55% to 25%, over Fiorina in a potential matchup.

VIDEO: Boxer Accuses Lindsey Graham of Being "Theatrical"

By GottaLaff

I'm so glad Barbara Boxer is my Senator. Go get him, Barbara!


Harrumph!

Via TPM:

In floor debate this morning on the stimulus bill, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) accused Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) of being "theatrical." He responded by being, well, theatrical.

Barbara Boxer Thumps McCain On "Time Out"

Scorching. Via anon (a sane one) in the comments.

Added via-

Barbara Boxer: Sarah Palin is "an extremist"

This video is from CBSNews.com, broadcast September 4, 2008.

I am so glad that Boxer is my Senator:

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has become the latest female Democratic leader to slam Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, telling reporters on Thursday that Palin is "an extremist" and "way out of the mainstream."

Finally! Boxer, Durbin on McCain: Temper, temper

By GottaLaff

Back to what really matters:

John McCain’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate are zeroing in on his oft-discussed temper, questioning whether that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is too volatile to be commander in chief.

I think I'm hallucinating. Say that again?

In separate interviews with Politico Tuesday, both Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said they have seen McCain “explode.”

“He has a huge anger problem,” Boxer said. “And he never hid that….I have seen it happen on the Senate floor many, many times…He has exploded at me a couple times.”

Mmmm, yes!!! More, more... more...

Boxer said McCain has always apologized after the dust-ups. Nonethless, she insinuated that McCain’s temperament makes him unfit for the White House.

“It’s all well and good to apologize,” Boxer added, “but if you are in charge of that black box, I worry about that.”

Two points: One, she's spot on. Two, this is what abusers do. They abuse, they apologize, they charm... and then they abuse again.

Durbin noted McCain’s temper is “well documented,” saying that he had been on the receiving end of it for what he considered “minor things.”

“I was in a confrontation with him… and he was quick to explode,” said Durbin. “It simmered for a long time.”

He apparently suffers from PTSD, and at the very least, from a severe pyschological disorder called, what is it again? Oh yes. Completely Unchecked Nonrestrictive Temper, or C.U... never mind.

Boxer pointed out that many of McCain’s GOP colleagues have also spoken out about his volatility, highlighting an incident told to the Biloxi Sun Herald by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.).

Cochran told the newspaper that he watched McCain get involved in a physical confrontation with a Nicaraguan government official during a 1987 trip there. According to Cochran, McCain grabbed the official by the shirt collar and “snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair.”

Gold.

Quote-O'-The-Day: Barbara Boxer edition

By GottaLaff

I just heard this on MSNBC:

"You have to go pretty far to the right to be a zero."
--Barbara Boxer on John Sidney McCain's record on women's issues.