T Minus 80 Days

"I think it's very important for the American President to mean what he says. That's why I understand that the enemy could misread what I say. That's why I try to be as clearly as I can."

- Washington, DC, 2004

The Face Of Racism

The head of the Hillsborough GOP, David Storck, distributed an email from a Republican Party volunteer saying the voters are a threat.

That's because, as the volunteer says in the email, he sees "car loads of black Obama supporters coming from the inner city to cast their votes for Obama."

It goes on to say, "This is their chance to get a black president and they seem to care little the he is at minimum a socialist and probably Marxist in his core beliefs." The Republican volunteer says that is because, "After all he is black- no experience or accomplishments but he is black."

Look at Storck's lying ass on the video. This is the worst kind of racist because when confronted about it, he tries to weasel his way out of it by saying he didn't mean for it to be construed as racist. I always say I'd rather deal with a neo-nazi or a skinhead than these cowardly motherfuckers, because at least you know what you're dealing with.

John McCain should repudiate these remarks and demand the resignation of Storck as the Republican Chairman at Hillsborough, but you know he won't because he's just as much of a coward and a weasel as Storck.

What A Complete Moron

I never thought it would be possible that an elected official, a former Mayor and a current Governor of one of our fifty states, someone running for the Vice Presidency of the United States, would be so ingorant and not understand the Constitution of the country she is running to lead.

Sarah Palin: "If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

Bill Kristol: Biggest. Douchebag. Ever.

I as soooooooooo glad I recorded The Daily Show last night. When I heard the name "Bill Kristol" come out of Jon Stewart's mouth, I almost got sick to my stomach. This is one of the most vile conservatives ever and at the same time such an easy punching bag because you can count on him to be wrong 99% of the time. I'm still looking for that one percent but I'm giving Kristol the benefit of the doubt.

But still, I just can't take anymore bullshit these last four days (FOUR DAYS!) before the election - I don't even listen to the live coverage from the Republican campaign trail anymore - and I certainly didn't feel like listening to the likes of Kristol after a long day, but Stewart is like a fine surgeon with his comedy scalpel and it was a lesson in how to deal with wingnuts.

Jon Stewart is my hero.



Stewart: Sarah Palin is from Alaska. They give a stipend from corporations to their citizens. That is Marxism, is it not? Isn't that redistribution of wealth?

Kristol: No, that's conservative economics. Helping those hard working citizens.

Audience moans and laughs in disgust.

[...]

Kristol: I'd would prefer to go with McCain's record in the Senate than Obama's record in the campaign.

Stewart: But [McCain] has repudiated almost that entire record during the campaign.

Kristol: Oh, nonsense. Nonsense. You're reading the New York Times too much, Jon.

Stewart: BILL, YOU WORK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES!

[...]

Stewart: But you can't look at past performance as a predictor, otherwise you wouldn't be obviously still a pundit.


Bill Kristol: Biggest. Douchebag. Ever.

Happy Halloween!

I Gotta Get One Of These Installed!

Unfortunately, it's one of a kind.

But I did get one of these for my dog, and she loves tearing it to shreds!

American Stories, American Solutions

Here's Barack Obama's thirty minute infomercial that ran last night in case you were not one of the 29 million viewers who watched it.



I'll be posting reaction to this video from the punditocracy and the wingnut right as I come across it with frequent updates. I already hear Rush Limbaugh is making fun of the families in the video... because they were fat. Try and figure that one out.

UPDATE (9:20pm):

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): "Anybody see the infomercial last night? Thank god for cable! If we had played that at a prison camp it’d have violated the Geneva Convention."
Graham joking about torture when the candidate he is backing voted against a ban on waterboarding. Classy.

Nails On A Chalkboard

Sarah Palin is talking again. I can feel it in my bones. It's like rubbing two pieces of styrofoam together. I don't understand what she's saying. It doesn't sound like words to me. It sounds like letting the air out of a balloon by pulling the two sides of the air nozzle in opposite directions to make that high pitched, whiny squeal... only there's an occasional "also" or "you betcha" added.

I'm hearing crowds chanting "Sarah! Sarah!" and "USA! USA!"

Sqeak, sqeak, sqeeeeeeeeeal, sqeeeeeeak, squeal. USA! USA! USA! You betcha! Also, squeeeeal, squeak, also squeak squeak. SARAH! SARAH!

I really can't wait until November 5th so I never have to listen to Sarah Palin speak. Ever. Again.

It's Time For Joe The Plumber To Shut The Fuck Up

Okay, Joe (if that is your real name) I've had it with you. You've far exceeded your 15 minutes.

When you first came on the scene, I thought it was a bit interesting. Here's this everyman that is obviously a Republican who doesn't know any better and votes against his own best interests. That's cool. There are many other people like you who do. You approached Barack Obama while he was walking in your neighborhood, and although you seemed to show a little less respect than I personally would like to have seen shown to a sitting United States Senator, you got your question across and made your point. You thought Obama would raise your taxes if you made over $250,000 a year after you bought your boss' s plumbing business.

But little did you know how your life would change after your hero, John McCain would invoke your name 21 times in the last presidential debate. Throngs of reporters gathered outside your home to get a little Joe the Plumber (if that is your real profession) wisdom. JOE THE PLUMBER! JOE THE PLUMBER! JOE THE PLUMBER! McCain was giddy with Joe the Plumber mania. He finally had a working class guy at his side he could exploit, and exploit you he did.

Did you not expect anyone to check out your background after your name and face became the new McCain campaign slogan? And then we started finding out the truth about Joe the plumber.

Joe "The Plumber" Werzulbacher asked about Obama's tax plan over $250,000 but only makes $40,000.
Joe "The Plumber" Werzulbacher hadn't made a decision on who he was voting for yet, but wasn't even registered to vote and had donated $100 to the McCain campaign.
Joe "The Plumber" Werzulbacher owes $1,100 in back taxes so what difference is Obama's tax plan going to make if he doesn't pay taxes anyway?
Joe "The Plumber" Werzulbacher DOESN'T HAVE A PLUMBER'S LICENSE!
Joe "The Plumber" Werzulbacher's real name is Sam.

After watching the full video of Obama explaining for over five minutes in great detail how you might even pay less taxes than under McCain's plan with your false 'quarter of a million dollars-buying a business' scenario, all you took out of it was the "spread the wealth" comment that was a tack on at the end of the conversation. And that's all the McCain campaign took out of it too, but we expect that from a campaign, not an honest, hard working guy like you, Joe.

So what happens next? All of a sudden Joe the non licensed plumber is an expert and getting called to appear of Fox News... well I suppose he's as good an expert as anyone else at Fox News. He's given major exposure. He starts campaigning for Sarah Palin even though McCain said it was Obama that had put Joe in the spotlight. He's a hot commodity. So what do you do, Joe? Joe the plumber hires Jim the publicist. Joe the plumber wants to make a country album.

But then the tide starts to turn, doesn't it, Joe? All of a sudden you start getting asked important questions. Questions that you don't know the answers to, McCain policy questions that had you actually been interested in knowing and understanding, might have made you look like less of a fool than you look now. Foreign policy questions you have no clue about, and instead of keeping your mouth shut and saying you don't have enough knowledge to answer, after all you're just a plumber, you agree with someone who says that a vote for Obama equals death to Israel. OOPS! And when you're called on it by a Fox news anchor who somehow had the decency to stick to the facts, you took the Sarah Palin approach - the non answer answer.



Joe, it's time for you to shut the fuck up. You have thrust yourself into the national spotlight. You weren't forced. You were asked and accepted without knowing the consequences. And now your putting yourself out there as being knowledgeable on the issues (when dare I say you might know less than George W. Bush) and agreeing with nutjobs that think Israel would be in danger in an Obama presidency.

You don't know the answers to any of these questions and yet you dare to say that people should go and get the information themselves and make their own decision, but you haven't done it yourself! You want them to have their own opinion while spouting your own uninformed one. Thank Jebus that Shepard Smith was honest and decent enough, even though he works at Fox, to straighten you out and make sure that people viewing knew you are full of shit as he stated Obama's stance on Israel.

I'll leave you with Keith Olbermann's take on Sam the non licensed plumber but before I do, I just want to say one more thing to Joe/Sam:

Joe, I don't know what I'd do if I were in your position. The spotlight can be addictive, the attention you are receiving is probably like nothing most of us will ever experience. But I'm asking you for the sake of the country to shut the fuck up. Stop speaking about things you know nothing of.

Take your own advice, Joe, and really research the issues. Try to understand the complicated policies and plans, figure out what best suits your needs and goals. And after all that, if you want to vote for McCain, then vote for him. But make sure that you're voting for McCain because he speaks to your issues and not against Obama because you've heard he's a radical Muslim Socialist Communist because Sarah Palin said so.

After two years of campaigning, don't you think the guy has been vetted to the point that this would have already come up during the primaries? It's been debunked. Let it go. Stop perpetuating the lies and start thinking about the real concerns, the real problems our country faces, and what you can do as an individual to make the world a better place your future generations.

Your fifteen minutes were up twenty minutes ago, Joe. It's been a fun ride but now it's time to get off.

O-BAM!-A

Stupid Is As Stupid Does - Part the Third

Elisabeth Hasselbeck:

"I find it completely then repulsive to then - if we want to look at spending - see how Barack Obama now is going to spend what $3 million on two thirty minute ads that are going to run this week."

So Hasselbeck considers it "repulsive" spending money on ad buys with the economy being what it is. Hmmm... Think about that for a minute. Hasselbeck considers buying ad time repulsive, but she'll defend Sarah Palin and the RNC on the $150,000 spent on her wardrobe in a month. Not to mention the $20,000 spent on a make up artist for Palin in about two weeks. Yet, Obama's 30 minute time block is "repulsive." I wonder if she would find it repulsive had it been McCain and Palin buying that ad time. I'm thinking not.

Hey Elisabeth, do you find the New Mexico GOP's voter intimidation tactics against hispanic voters "repulsive"? How about the fake flier being circulated in Virginia "informing" Democratic voters to cast their vote on November 5th, the day after the election in order to ease the load at the polls? Do you find that "repulsive"? What about attempting to suppress voting and registration for college students? Is that repulsive, Hasselbeck?

The thing I find repulsive is that Elisabeth Hasselbeck continues to open her piehole. Stick to the nipple talk and the virtues of breast pumps, Elisabeth, and leave the serious talk for serious, intelligent people.

T Minus 83 Days

"We all thought there was weapons there, Robin. My opponent thought there was weapons there."


- Second presidential debate, St. Louis Missouri, October 2004

What If...

I received this e-mail from a friend and thought I'd submit it here. It's one of those e-mails that gets circulated around so I don't know who the originator was - I apologize in advance - but I am not taking credit for it.

We all know that racism has played a part in this campaign from the very beginning (I'm not about to start naming specific instances... maybe that's for another post) but picturing the campaign scenario had Obama's and McCain's situations been reversed, the outcome would be completely different. I've thought about this in passing on occasion, but having it written out and really thinking about it, even caught me by surprise. I'm sure you'll feel the same way.

Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin

What if the presidential candidates exchanged race? Think about it... Would the country's collective point of view be different?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was divorced?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after she was severely disfigured in a car accident?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain had graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to displaypublicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are? This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

So let's consider some other stuff like educational backgrounds:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University, College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world.

See what I mean? At least one of those caught you off guard, admit it. Six days until Election Day. Vote early and vote often.

The Closing Argument

T Minus 84 Days

"It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only the life of babies, but it's the life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet."

- Arlington Heights, Illinois, October 2000

Stupid Is As Stupid Does - Part the Second

When I compared Palin and Hasselbeck to Lucy and Ethel, I thought I might be exaggerating. Now that I've forced myself to watch Hasselbeck open for Palin, I realize that I wasn't far off. Grab a bottle of Tums™ and watch the hilarity and hijinks.



Who the fuck wrote this opening for her? I was waiting for them to start stuffing chocolate bon-bons down their blouses.

And after the whole idiotic wardrobe kerfuffle, why would they bring it up again? Here's why:

Ensuring that news of the Republican National Committee's sartorial spending spree will remain in the headlines for at least one more news cycle, Sarah Palin on Sunday sounded off on the $150,000 wardrobe that was purchased for her in September, denouncing the report as "ridiculous" and declaring emphatically: "Those clothes, they are not my property."

A senior adviser to John McCain told CNN's Dana Bash that the comments about her wardrobe "were not the remarks we sent to her plane this morning." Palin did not discuss the wardrobe story at her rally in Kissimmee later in the day.

They completely ignored the McCain campaign's wishes to let sleeping dogs lie and not mention the $150,000 Nieman Marcus and Saks shopping spree and inserted it into their stump speech before getting bitchslapped and omitting it later on.

The View starts in 7 minutes. I've never said this before, but I can't wait to tune in and watch the fireworks, although I'm guessing that Behar and Goldberg will treat Hasselbeck with kid gloves for fear of making her cry again.

UPDATE (11:27am):

I was right. Barbara Walters took control of the first segment and they had a calm discussion about Hasselbeck's appearance, including the "accessories" line from her speech.

For those of you who couldn't stomach watching the video above, the line was, "I'm actually personally most impressed by her accessories. You know, like the flag pin that she wears in honor of her son and our military men and women fighting abroad... no they didn't list that accessory and its value in their reports, did they? You know why? Because they know it's priceless." (I just vomited a little in the back of my throat.)

Hasselbeck says she brought up the wardrobe "scandal" because she wanted to diffuse it and end it right then and there. Of course she didn't realize that the story was dying down and she only helped to keep it in the spotlight... which they did for yet another day by featuring it on The View.

Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar were very, shall we say, respectful and insisted that this was an issue not because it was sexist, as Hasselbeck claims, but because this is what people latch on to. Whoopi cited examples of Bill Clinton suits, Nancy Reagan's wardrobe, how people were deriding Hillary Clinton's wardrobe and that she couldn't dress well (which drew a smile from Hasselbeck if you were paying attention) and John Edwards' haircut.

Behar argued the point that Palin could have refused the clothing because of the fact that she is trying to portray herself as the Wal-Mart hockey mom. Walters didn't blame Palin, but the Republican National Committee for the shopping spree and since Palin has too many things to think about, clothes isn't one of them. Fair enough.

Can we drop this non story now? I'd rather concentrate on things like Palin's (and surrogates) touting of an "agreement to build" a $40 billion natural gas pipeline that hasn't been built, hasn't even started construction in fact, and has experts agreeing that it may never get done.

Anchorage Daily News Endorses Obama

Although they overdo it in the compliment department in my opinion, the Anchorage Daily News hits the nail on the head regarding their own governor.

...Gov. Palin's nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency -- but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.

...despite [Palin's] formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.