Pencils and notebooks resembling President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign ads have been sold in at least one Columbia school and other public schools, causing the company that distributes the materials to travel around the state yanking the supplies out of machines.
“Don’t be mad at us,” said Greg Jones, a sales representative with Pencil Wholesale. “It was a total accident.” At Mill Creek, at least one pencil and a notebook with designs similar to Obama campaign advertisements have been sold out of a supply machine. Two families have complained about the politically tinged materials.
Three Missouri schools have contacted Jones since the beginning of the school year asking that the materials be removed, and Mill Creek Principal Mary Sue Gibson this week said she also planned to call Pencil Wholesale.
“I just don’t want to get into that political arena at all,” she said. The bound three-ring notebook bears a photo of literal change — pennies, quarters, dimes and nickels stacked into piles. Above the photo, white text reads “CHANGE” over a navy background.
Below the photo, “WE CAN BELIEVE IN” sits above a logo similar to Obama’s campaign image — three red stripes separated by white stripes in front of a white circle with a blue background arching over the circle. The supplies were designed by the art department of Harcourt Pencil Co., based in Milroy, Ind., Jones said. “The art department was trying to be cutesy,” he said. Jones has agreed to go to schools that might have received the supplies and remove them. “I wish I could do it over,” he said. “But, for now, I can just make it right.” “It’s turned out to be really ugly,” Jones said. “We’re trying to get them out of the schools as fast as we can.”
He also wants to be clear that neither he nor his company created the design. In fact, he said, he’s a registered Republican who voted for John McCain in last year’s presidential election.
“It’s a total nightmare,” Jones said.
How could he have NOT noticed something like that? I smell a rat.
In this case, it does appear to just be a simple mistake, but I can totally forsee Obama supporters making similar ‘mistakes’ in the future; by ‘mistake’, of course.
It’s just all the more reason to get your kids the hell out of the government indoctrination camps they call public ‘schools’.
This is small ball.
If you want to expose REAL graft — for millions and millions — do a blog entry about Bush insiders who profited from No Child Left Behind.
If you’re a typical conservative, you didn’t give a flying duck about that. But pencils “resembling” Obama’s logo — THAT’S OUTRAGEOUS! Let’s end democracy over it!
BTW, today is December 7th – the 68th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. If you happen to know a WW2 vet (regardless of your country) please take time to thank them. A phone call is cheap, their sacrifices were great.
Greg: Can you PLEASE get over your knee jerk badmouthing of Bush? We have a new crook in the White House now and he deserves our full attention.
#2 Agreed. The Republipukes use trivial shit as a red herring to direct attention away from their disasters and massive public ripoffs.
The ‘great pencil recall of 2009’ will go down in the 2012 campaign, you betcha.
#4 Hey pal — as long as wingnuts bash Obama for things they gave Bush a pass on, we’re gonna call you on it. It’s not about Bush, it’s about your hypocrisy.
There are legitimate criticisms to be made about Obama. But mindless wingnuts aren’t the ones to do it. Sorry, pal — you bought Dubya’s BS hook line and sinker, and you look like idiots criticizing Obama for lesser sins.
What’s that you say? You’re one of the wingnuts who didn’t vote for Dubya? Riiiiiiiiight. 🙂
curious the logo looks like the state seal of ohio
http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=state+seal+of+ohio&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
hhmmmm
After Pelosi and Reid get finished with us, that’s the only “change” we will be left with. The school should be grateful for educational materials.
I thought the election was over.
I would think twice before getting involved in any political campaign (it doesn’t matter who I do support) because there will always be people that could feel offended by this behavior. This is a delicate matter.
I bet the graphic designer was a Republican as well… most of them artsy types are ….
everybody understands the notebook cover is bashing obama right?
#13 Don’t assume that… the wingnuts don’t have much of a sense of humor or irony. This stuff is just lost on them.
It is indeed amazing how many different identities the few people who actually post on this blog can create. .. Like just imagine if they had jobs and were able to do something creative with their time, how much better off the rest of the world would be.
#9 Little pedro, you’re mind-numbingly predictable. The minute anyone defends Obama against any idiotic wingnut charge, you accuse them of being slavish Obama supporters.
Just like you were a slavish Dubya supporter. It’s tough when your god turns out to have feet of clay, isn’t it? Nothing more cranky than a wingnut who has to admit the man they worshiped for 8 years was really an idiot.
For the liberals there are no statute of limitations on Bush for anything Obama fails on. Go figure.
Obama has about 3 years left in his first term and so far he’s doing a terrible job. That being said, I heard some shocking news this morning that he’s going to provide tax cuts in order to curb unemployment. He’s starting to understand that raising taxes in a recession is STUPID.
Now on the flip side, the EPA is now saying the gas we all exhale is now hazardous and should be regulated. The sobering thought here is that everyone’s lifestyles will either be prohibitively expensive or heavily regulated. The only people who will be able to live as they do now will be the rich while the average person will suffer. Hooray for looking out for the small guy.
#18 Little pedro, you’ve got a blind spot a mile wide. You just don’t see it when us liberals criticize Obama. In your little black-and-white world, you either worship or demonize, nothing in between. So anyone who supports any little thing Obama does becomes a slavish Obama worshiper.
Shades of gray, grasshopper. Shades of gray. Think about it. If possible. I doubt it, but anything’s possible.
#17 Guyver: We’ll stop talking about Bush when you stop criticizing Obama for things you didn’t criticize Bush about. Until then, we’ll be calling you on your endless hypocrisy.
As I’ve said countless times before, there are plenty of things to criticize Obama about. But you wingnuts who supported every stupid thing Dubya did, you have no ground to criticize Obama. Case in point: spying and violating civil rights. You supported it blindly when Dubya did it, in fact when us liberals criticized it, you blasted us as terrorist lovers and freedom haters. Now that Obama’s continuing Dubya’s policies, you suddenly hate them. Sorry kiddo, doesn’t fly.
>> Animby said, on December 7th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
>> Greg: Can you PLEASE get over your knee jerk badmouthing of Bush? We have a new crook in the White House now and he deserves our full attention.
Oh, I get it. The gigantic flaming bag of crap that Bush and the conservatives left Obama hasn’t even been extinguished yet and you guys want to forget all about it.
>> Dallas said, on December 7th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
>> #2 Agreed. The Republipukes use trivial shit as a red herring to direct attention away from their disasters and massive public ripoffs.
Remember when the conservatives spent some crazy amount of time and money investigating the Clinton’s Christmas card list?
But Bush’s treason, torture, illegal spying on our own citizens, war profiteering, illegal domestic propaganda. The conservatives gave a collective yawn!
“Now is not the time to investigate” they would smugly declare until they switched to, “That’s all in the past! Why do liberals dredge up old stuff?”
Here’s the thing… million, even billion dollar insider profiteering by Bush cronies is still going on today. Getting rid of those guys is harder than getting rid of roaches and rats.
Logos on pencils is NOTHING.
N O T H I N G compared to BILLIONS of tax dollars the cult of Bush pocketed from their insider crap — and this included from education.
>> Guyver said, on December 8th, 2009 at 8:07 am
>> For the liberals there are no statute of limitations on Bush for anything Obama fails on. Go figure.
I’ll quit complaining when we finally clean up your mess and pay your debts.
>> Obama has about 3 years left in his first term and so far he’s doing a terrible job.
If by “terrible” you mean “fixing the conservative disaster” then I suppose so.
More people getting work? The conservatives boo and hiss! Thousand of people dying for lack of health care — the conservatives demand even more!
The conservatives will not be happy until America looks like a scene from Blackhawk Down.
Awww, for fsck sake!! What ever happened to the capitalist notion of let the market decide? If you don’t like the product, DON’T BUY IT! Making a stink to remove a product because you don’t like the message is ANTI-AMERICAN!
The funniest thing about this (and the reason why the wingnuts are slinking away) is that, like #13 pointed out, this is a slap at Obama, not propaganda supporting him. A picture of coins, with the caption “Change we can believe in”. Get it? This change they can believe in, Obama’s change they don’t.
Silly wingnuts. Run away now, before you embarrass yourselves further. 🙂
pedro, you make a stupid fool of yourself again. nobody likes to see a fool fall on his face. well let me correct that. only idiots like you enjoy seeing others fall on their face.
it is embarrassing to know i phucked the skank ass whore who spawned you. i washed my dick a thousand times since then and i still feel dirty.
please stop being such an embarrassment. go back to sucking your pet goat’s dick and leave the intelligent people alone.
Let me see if I got this right. A company has a pencil and notebook machines in schools. The logo on their pencils resembles the Obama logo from the 2008 election. The Obama logo is a stylized version of the American flag. So in reality the pencils are just another (of many) stylized version of the flag. So by criticizing these pencils, they are actually criticizing the American flag.
Why do the right hate America?
#25 There is none so blind as he who will not see.
22, So what you mean is you pay off debts with more debts? Wow! Hope and change we can believe in. LOL. Democrats have had control of Congress since 2006. Not sure what you mean by “Conservative” disaster. You might be shocked to know that the House holds the purse strings and not the President.
That being said, Bush tried to push for audits of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac back in 2002/2003 but Democrats cited this would reduce home ownership amongst minorities so they didn’t want to pursue that. The Community Reinvestment Act was flawed but well-intentioned which led up to the housing market disaster.
How about not ending the Iraq War? Many Democrats ran on promises to end the war. Congress only needs to kill funding to end it…. but instead Liberals somehow blame Bush for something Constitutionally in Congress’ power to end. Like I said before, Liberals don’t like to take responsibility for their own actions and would rather blame Bush.
BTW, Black Hawk Down was a disaster under the Clinton Administration. It’s one of many reasons why most military folk typically don’t like Clinton.
Oh, as for Health Care “reform” the Democrats originally had the votes before they did the townhall meetings. After things backfired, they’re now realizing that they may be losing seats in Congress in 2010. So instead of having transparent talks on C-Span or inviting Republicans over to make this a bipartisan effort, the liberals are doing things behind closed doors, not inviting bipartisan efforts, and ignoring calls and letters from concerned constituents.
Real hope and change starts in 2010.
Holy cow! How touchy people have become! As Foghorn Leghorn might say, “It’s a, I say, it’s a joke, son!” Yet already we have disgusting name-calling, invocation of the Community Reinvestment Act (surely soon to be followed by the SEIU, ACORN and Bill Ayers), “Democrats have had control of Congress since 2006” (look at them trying to do something about health care — can you honestly claim _anybody_ controls that group?). The Reactionary-American community is still super-upset that President Obama continues
all that annoying breathing in, and out, and in, and out…
Get over it — it’s a joke, people!
#29, guyver,
Bush tried to push for audits of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac back in 2002/2003 but Democrats cited this would reduce home ownership amongst minorities so they didn’t want to pursue that. The Community Reinvestment Act was flawed but well-intentioned which led up to the housing market disaster.
Bullcrap!!! Bush didn’t want and didn’t try to “audit” the FMs. He ended up making them eat the toxic paper the banks were buying in 2006. He also tried to further remove Congress from the regulatory oversight of Fanny and Freddie. The Republican Committee Chairmen saw the plan and buried the legislation in 2004.
It wasn’t the Community Reinvestment Act that caused the problem. It was the massive fraud by mortgage salesmen and banks AND the loss of jobs overseas. All of which occurred on Bushes watch.
The CRA was government intervention which forced banks to lend money to risky borrowers because simply going by someone’s ability to pay was deemed racist since certain minorities in this country are disproportionately more poor than others. It’s funny how a government-created problem is somehow the fault of the greedy banks.
Owning a house is NOT an entitlement. If you can’t afford one, then live in an apartment… or dare I say it? Get a better job.
It happened under “Bush’s watch” but he did try to fix the problems passed onto him by all previous administrations since Carter’s.
11 Sep 2003: “‘The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. …
Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.
‘These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.””
http://tinyurl.com/cmf3u8
Bottom line, Liberal Democrats did not want to regulate Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac because they wanted more of their target constituents to own homes they couldn’t afford in order to buy more votes.
But yeah, we get it. It’s alllllllll Bush’s fault. LOL.
32, Fusion, Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac scam: http://tinyurl.com/3nkrp7
Here’s another one just for fun: http://tinyurl.com/547gzn