It's Election Day

Get out and VOTE!

Monday Music Break

Dedicated to the memory of failed presidential candidate Willard Mittens Romney, here is the incomparable Bob Dylan and Like a Rolling Stone:

I can't imagine a more fitting set of lyrics to describe Romney on the morning of day after tomorrow:

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone? 

Go ahead and check out all the lyrics to this great song -- they are fittin'  Mittens all the way.

Will There Be a Revolt?

Assuming that Nate Silver is correct and Obama wins re-election, then what are the Rethugs likely to do? Given that this is likely their last hurrah -- the demographics are simply not with them -- will they simply fold their tents and slip gently into that good night?


If the past is any indication, that's not likely. They are hoping for another very close election, and they would not be above staging another astroturf Brooks Brothers riot, the way they did in Florida in 2000, but this time in battleground state Ohio.

The SCLM* is acting as their handmaidens, playing it up as a statistical dead heat when in reality it is already a done deal for Obama (according to Nate Silver, anyway). In the old days we would have said that it sells more papers. We can't say that any more, since paper is going the way of the Dodo Bird, and it's all electronic. Which means that they want to gin up more viewers; more viewers = more advertising revenue; it's simple Econ 101 stuff, people.

But the average member of the Moron-American Voting Bloc has no way to know that, which is why they are willing to buy into the "dead heat" meme, and the more people that buy into that, the less shocked they will be when the Rethugs start that revolt.

I agree wholeheartedly with one thing: They are revolting.

May you live in interesting times...

---

[* SCLM = So Called Liberal Media]

Rethug Extortion

Where I come from this is called "extortion". It's no different from some knuckle-dragging guido with a baseball bat strolling into your convenience store and saying, "Nice place ya got here. Be a damn shame if somethin' should happen to it, wooden it? Maybe somethin' like, I dunno, a baseball bat breakin' out ya front window? Tell ya what I'm gonna do. Gimme fifty a week and I'll make sure that don't happen."

Romney today issued his own version of this:

In what his campaign billed as his “closing argument,” Mitt Romney warned Americans that a second term for President Obama would have apocalyptic consequences for the economy in part because his own party would force a debt ceiling disaster.

See the whole story over at TPM and tell me where I'm wrong.

It's Official: I am Damned

Mike Huckabee says so, so I guess it must be true:

HUCKABEE: Many issues are at stake, but some issues are not negotiable: The right to life from conception to natural death. Marriage should be reinforced, not redefined. It is an egregious violation of our cherished principle of religious liberty for the government to force the Church to buy the kind of insurance that leads to the taking of innocent human life.
Your vote will affect the future and be recorded in eternity. Will you vote the values that will stand the test of fire? This is Mike Huckabee asking you to join me November 6th and vote based on values that will stand the test of fire.

Yep, when I dropped that ballot marked for Obama and all Democrats into the mail, I sealed my fate. But, as Billy Joel put it, "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with saints -- the sinners are much more fun".

BTW, did you get that "every sperm is sacred" reference to birth control insurance leading to the taking of innocent human life? What does Huckabee do when he has a "wet dream"? Even though it potentially has a totally awesome "ecccchh!" factor, I'd kind of like to know what measures he takes to ensure the sacred motility of those otherwise wasted "pre-humans" that he inadvertently sploogied onto his pajamas.

Okay, now I'm grossing myself out...

Must See Animation Video

Really, truly, you have to see this:

The Rat Faced Git Goes to Rat Mouth FL

I knew Mittens couldn't do it. He couldn't manage to get through one and a half hours of television time -- and only half of which was his -- without lying.

His "Apology Tour" snark probably wasn't the biggest one, but it's one of the most smarmy and repeated ones, and Obama called him right out on it. He also called him out on several others as well, at one point saying, "Governor, nothing you've said is true" after a typical Romney tirade.

According to FactCheck.com, both sides came out either with some blatant lying -- Romney -- or some minor misstatements -- Obama. [those are my interpretations, anyway...]

On balance, though, Romney came off as a lying rat faced git who lost the debate on points and content and style. RepubliCONs will likely disagree with that assessment, but fuck 'em, I can be as big a proponent of confirmation bias as they can.

BTW, speaking of "rat face gits", you did know that Boca Raton (the site of the debate) is Spanish for Rat Mouth, didn't you? Perfect venue for Governor Etch-A-Sketch to be all speechifyin'.

Okay, so this time I got to watch the debate at home on my own high-def television, not at a crowded and noisy Democratic Party debate-watching soiree in a restaurant like the last two, and so I got to see Romney's perspiring face and fake-ass smile up close and personal. Not so much of that unjustifiably-overconfident fratboy smirk this time -- you know what I'm talking about: That face that made you want to scream obscenities and throw a lamp through the television screen. No, the boy was actually sweating it out big time, and you could see the cords in his neck stand out as he clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth.

Too bad, Little Mittens. If you can't take the heat, you shouldn't play with the big boys.

Meanwhile, Back on the Boston Plantation...

How fucked up is this? The Massachusetts Rethugs are paying unemployed black people to campaign for Scott Brown.

They are getting a "per diem" payment of about 8 bucks an hour to walk around in predominately black neighborhoods wearing t-shirts that say "Obama Supporters for Brown". While I guess that it is technically legal, it is fucked up in so many ways that I can't think about it without my head wanting to explode.

Exploitation? Hell, yes. Who wouldn't take that eight bucks if they were homeless and unemployed?

And maybe when the election is over, Scott Brown, if he manages to win, can find a job for all those lazy shiftless newly-unemployed "Negroes" on one of the plantations down south. I hear that Alabama, since they made being a Mexican illegal, can't find enough people to harvest the crops...

I Voted!

Here in Washington state we've had mail-in-only ballots for years. I kind of miss the old days, though, when you showed up in the morning before work at the nearby grade school, chatted with poll workers and flirted with the old ladies, signed in, and went into a little curtained booth to try to punch out your hanging chads. Then they gave you a little oval sticker that said "I Voted!" that you could wear to work and be all smug with your fellow employees who didn't have one.

As much as I like the convenience of mail-in voting, I think we've lost some of our civic pride when we left the old system behind. So, after we went to pure mail in, I used to hang on to my ballot until election day and then drop it at one of the many drop boxes around town. That way if an election were close I could have the feeling that my vote actually made a difference.

However, after several elections' worth of showing up at phone banks and calling people to vote for my candidates, I learned that if you get your ballot in early, you drop off the phone lists. So I filled mine out on Saturday and dropped it in the mailbox with a stamp. They will get it tomorrow, record that I sent it in, and the phone calls will magically cease.

And that will free up time for the phone bank volunteers to call other people who haven't voted yet.

Obama is way ahead in Washington State, so far ahead that my presidential vote won't really count, and I was tempted to cast a protest vote for one of the minor candidates. I haven't been above that in the past. In 1980, when I knew that Reagan was going to win, I voted for John Anderson (Independent). In 1984, when I knew he was going to win again, I voted for Gus Hall and Angela Davis (Communist).

But this year I just couldn't do it. I had to vote for Obama anyway, even though he's done a bunch of shit that I don't really like. But here's a piece from Daniel Ellsberg that pretty much sums up my feelings about it: Defeat Romney, Without Illusions about Obama.

Read it, suck it up, bite the bullet and vote for Obama. Romney would be so much worse that it is beyond comparison, almost beyond comprehension.

I even finally put up my "Veterans for Obama" yard sign left over from four years ago. I'm in!

Even Your "Hometown" Newspaper? Really?

For Mormons, wherever they might physically live, Utah is the Holy Land, the Mormon Homeland.

And that is why it is even more interesting when your "hometown newspaper", in this case the Salt Lake City Tribune, comes right out and endorses your opponent.

Tribune Endorsement: Too Many Mitts is the news out of SLC today. And boy does it ever push the slams against Mittens:

...it is not the only Romney, as his campaign for the White House has made abundantly clear, first in his servile courtship of the tea party in order to win the nomination, and now as the party’s shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?"

The evidence suggests no clear answer, or at least one that would survive Romney’s next speech or sound bite. Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear.

Yeah, eat that, Mittens! If you can't even gain the endorsement of the newspaper of record for the Mormon Homeland, then why should we vote for you?

Take That, Mittens!

Obama came back with his game face on and ready to play smash-mouth football last night. He called Romney a liar to his face several times, and got him stuttering over the Libya question.

"Read the transcript", Obama said.

And Candy Crowley, to her credit, did jump in and validate that Obama had used the word "terrorism" to describe the Benghazi killings, the very next day and not two weeks later, as Romney had accused. And that left poor Mittens with nowhere to hide. But can you imagine if the moderator had been Gretchen Carlson or one of the other blonde clones from Faux "News"? She definitely would not have stepped in to make that comment, which then would have allowed the Romney camp to engage in another "he said-she said" slippery evasion over whether Obama had said it or not. Which is why it's a good thing that both sides have to agree on a debate moderator.

Mittens, in his continuing uphill battle to appear human, did try to keep his chin up, but you could tell he was jarred and angry. Notice where Romney was when the debate was over and Obama was schmoozing with the "undecided" voters on the panel? He was surrounded by his family, and as far as I could tell he didn't mingle at all with the panel, and like last time beat a hasty retreat.

Too many representatives from the 47%,  the unwashed teeming millions, to suit him, I guess.

Is Romney This Stupid?

According to Mittens Romney, we do not have people who die because they don't have insurance:

“We don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack,’” he said as he offered more hints as to what he would put in place of “Obamacare,” which he has pledged to repeal.
“No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital. We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.”

Okay, Mitt. How about you spend a couple of hours at any urban hospital emergency room some Friday night and then come back and tell us with a straight face this story again. The sad thing is that even if he did take my advice, he'd still tell the same story. It fits his narrative and the truth be damned. Facts have a liberal bias you know.

No, he isn't stupid enough to believe that. It's another one of his out-and-out lies. He wants to do to human beings what he did to various companies that Bain Capital took over. Harvest their organs and toss out the shell onto the scrap heap.

Who needs "death panels" when we can have someone like Romney at the helm?

Romney is a Dirty Lousy Stinky Cheaty Rat

Get a load of this visual proof that Romney cheated his fucking ass off during the debate last week.

Like a lounge-show stage magician, Mittens prestidigitated a small notebook out of his jacket pocket and  slipped it into the well of his podium. Later he wasn't so slick about retrieving it, but he still got away with it.

Take a look at the photos and the video on the Cannonfire blog and tell me that you don't think that's what happened.

Remember in the Bush-Kerry debate eight years ago when the Shrub was in mid-speech and suddenly said, "wait, let me finish"? When it seemed that no one was interrupting him? Speculation was rife at the time that he was wearing some kind of Star Trekky in-the-ear communicator and was being fed lines by an off-camera coach. Nothing was ever proved in that instance, but he did have that odd-looking boxy hump on the back of his suit jacket -- which of course got blamed on faulty fitting by the White House tailor... Yeah. Uh-huh.

I don't know that anything can be done at this point about Romney cheating, but sadly it comes as no surprise that he would do it. That fucker will say anything, do anything, to get elected.

[Thanks to Jules Feiffer for the "dirty lousy stinky cheaty rat" phrase, which appeared in one of his cartoons in the late fifties and has been one of my favorite insults ever since. Update: The cartoon appeared in New York's Village Voice on Feb 10, 1957 -- what can I say? I was a precocious kid...]

Is Romney the "White Horse" of Mormon Prophecy?

This one has a long pedigree. Way back in 1843 Joseph Smith, the original "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" of the Mormon Church, may have given a prophecy that someday the Mormons "will go to the Rocky Mountains and will be a great and mighty people established there, which I will call the White Horse of peace and safety." Adding that "I shall never go there" and predicting continued persecution by enemies of the church, Smith reportedly said that "You will see the Constitution of the United States almost destroyed. It will hang like a thread as fine as a silk fiber.... I love the Constitution; it was made by the inspiration of God; and it will be preserved and saved by the efforts of the White Horse, and by the Red Horse who will combine in its defense." BTW, the identity of that Red Horse is not stated in the prophecy, but it's a small stretch to see it as a reference to the "Lamanites" -- Native Americans who are left over remnants of a great Jewish(!) civilization in North America whose skin was cursed to darkness at some point.

I say "may have given" because the person to whom he spoke it, John Roberts of Utah, didn't bother to write it down until 1902. For those of you who were home schooled, that is a full 59 years after the fact. That's kind of a long time to keep the words of the Prophet to yourself.

Nevertheless, the prophecy itself has clung on stubbornly in Mormon thought, even though various authority figures in the church have never really adopted it as doctrine, never as being fully the word of the Prophet. Whenever a Mormon politician comes onto the national stage, though, the faithful among the Saints -- most of whom still believe in it despite the lack of support by the church -- try to adapt the prophecy to the politician. The George Romney of 1968 had been the White Horse candidate until he crashed and burned, and now  his son Willard Mitt is the one who carries the burden of the White Horse. Now that it's Mitt's, he's shrugging it off as "not church doctrine". But since he and the Mormons want nothing more than to establish a Mormon theocracy in this country, it has to be on his mind. What better way to do it than over some sham "constitutional crisis" wherein the constitution is "hanging by a thread"? After all, Glenn Beck (Mormon) says that it is already.

Well, let's keep Romney and Beck and their co-religionists guessing whether he's the White Horse or not for another four years. Defeat Romney, re-elect Obama, and let the prophecy swim snugly in the stew of Mormonism a little while longer.

(See White Horse Prophecy on Wikipedia for more details.)

27 Lies in 38 Minutes

Twenty-seven lies. Thirty-eight minutes. That's the score for Mitt Romney, the King of Smirk, in last night's debate. That comes out to about one lie every 90 seconds. That's gotta be some kind of record.

And where the fuck was Obama during all this? Standing there with his head down like a chastised child for most of it. Even when Romney basically called him "boy"...

Mr. President, this is not the way to do it.

I've read some analyses today that say that this was all part of some grand give-him-enough-rope-to-hang-himself strategy, a neo-Muhammed Ali political rope-a-dope, but I think if that's true it's a dangerous tactic. It's political Russian roulette.

Eight years ago in the debate between Darth Shoot-An-Old-Man-In-The-Face Cheney and John I-Can't-Keep-It-In-My-Pants Edwards, Cheney said something to the effect that he presided over the US Senate for four years and this was the first time he'd ever met Edwards. That was a lie. The debate wasn't even over before someone put up a photo of the two of them together.

Edwards had to have known it was a lie. Why didn't Edwards call him out on it? I never got an answer to that, and I don't suspect that I will. But that's all kind academic now.

Now we are dealing with the question as to why didn't Obama call Romney out on those lies?

Now It's Getting Personal

Word comes today that an unnamed Republican senator has put a block on a bill to give disabled veterans a modest increase in disability benefits.

As you all know, I am a disabled Vietnam veteran, so this hits me right in the breadbasket. And it's so typical of the RepubliCONS to do something like this under the cover of darkness, as it were, and hide from the public scrutiny -- the public scorn -- that would deservedly be heaped on him if he came right out into the light of day.

Does anyone need further proof that the RepubliCON Party does not have the best interests of America's veterans in mind?

And the bigger question is this: Are they trying to lose elections? What's going on here?

Well, if losing elections is what they want, let's give it to them. Vote Democratic, all the way down the ballot. Let's get these pond-scum dwellers in darkness out of office as fast as we can.

Poll Smoking

Okay, put your dirty minds at ease, that's not what I'm talking about.

No, I'm talking about the current RepubliCON dismissive reaction to the polls in the swing states that put Obama ahead -- sometimes WAY ahead -- in the race for the White House. Aside from the fact that these people -- Republican whiny-assed little snotnosed elititists -- do not live in the reality-based universe, I think there's something more to it.

By dismissing the polls in critical states such as Ohio, they are laying the groundwork for a challenge to the election, if not for outright stealing it, the way they did in Ohio in 2004, when all of the exit polling predicted that Kerry would win the state. And by winning the state, win the election, because if you will recall, it was Ohio that put Bush ahead and "smoked" Kerry in the final tally for the Electoral College votes.

And for me the one thing that is almost unforgivable in that election is that the Kerry campaign conceded too early, with the result that millions of absentee ballots and the like didn't even get counted.

I think that's what is behind the current Rethug pooh-poohing of the polling numbers. They couldn't get away with it in 2008, because the Obama sweep was so total that they would have ended up looking like a bunch of fascists or communists, or capitalist pig elitists, or -- well, pick your own poison -- trying to steal an election. Which they would have been.

That's why it is so important to get out the vote, and especially those of you in swing states: Do the heavy lifting to make the margin of victory for Obama so overwhelming that the Rethugs can't skitter by in the shadows, like the feces-eating cockroaches that they are.

Get down to your local Democratic Party headquarters and do some phone calling, do some doorbelling,  do some clerical work, deliver some yard signs, make coffee, etc. There is plenty of work to be done, and you will be able to find a job that fits with your schedule, your skills, your personality, your comfort level. Don't be like me after the 2000 "election" when I was bewailing the fact that I could have done more. That's how I became active in the Democratic Party and I haven't regretted a minute of it since then.

This is the most important election of our lives, so let's act like it!

False Prophecy and Real History in the Middle East

Here's a lengthy think-piece at The Nation by Norman Birnbaum on what's really going on with Netanyahu and the Pro-Zionists, both in Israel and in the United States:

Kabuki theater, with its extremely stylized dramaturgy, and the Yiddish stage, with its lachrymose realism, are rarely joined. The Democratic National Convention succeeded, however, in fusing the two. A platform insertion terming Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel was gaveled through by a visibly unhappy mayor of Los Angeles, reportedly at the insistence of the White House, which sought to silence Republican charges that the administration is disloyal to our unruly client state.
 Perhaps we should think instead of the Theater of the Absurd. The administration’s policy is like that of the governments that preceded it. The final status of Jerusalem is to be decided by Israel and Palestine if they conclude a peace treaty. It is almost certain, whoever wins the election, that our embassy will remain in Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, the audible anger of many of the convention delegates nullified the reassuring effect the resolution was supposed to have on those voters for whom Israel’s delusions of omnipotence are their commands. Most are Republican biblical literalists, who believe that the coming of Israel portends the Last Judgment, the conversion of some Jews and the extirpation of the rest. The leaders of the Jewish organizations are remarkably tolerant of the theology of their fundamentalist allies. They are sure, after all, of their unconditional support for Israel—something that an increasing number of American Jews refuse. The Jewish organizations and their leaders become all the louder as their constituency shrinks. A majority of American Jews will vote as Americans, and some of the most self-consciously Jewish of them will do so for the sake of biblical values of social justice—which they find increasingly challenged in Israel. Meanwhile, events in the world reduce the political theater at the convention to its true dimensions, exceedingly small.

"Unruly client state", indeed. Netanyahu reminds me of that schoolyard bully who says, threateningly, "Let's you and him fight."

He wants so bad for the US to attack Iran that he's practically pissing his pants over it. Never mind the fact that a substantial portion of his own population is against it. We should watch ourselves that we don't get painted into a corner over this.

Unfortunately, if Romney is elected, all bets are off and we are much more likely to engage in that "preventative" first strike that our buddy Netty wants us to.

Better Call a Wahhhmbulance

Despite the fact that Mittens has been running for office for what seems like forever, Little Annie Romney is not ready for prime time.

According to a story out of Iowa:

“Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” she said. “This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.”

In other words, "It's all hard and stuff!"

Jeez, why don't you stamp your little Stuart Weitzman-encased foot while you whine, "It's not fair! It's not fair!"

Now I can see why Mittens said he wanted to keep her under wraps as much as possible.

Obama Speech Kind of a Letdown, but Kerry! Wow!

Okay, the Democrats convention is over, and while I'm not in the business of picking winners and losers, I gotta say that the president's speech was kind of a letdown.

Of course no one could top Bill Clinton in the "speechifyin'" department, so maybe Obama is suffering from a "pales by comparison" effect. I'm willing to cut him some slack, but I'm a little concerned that his overall lackluster performance will suppress some of the bounce I was expecting him to get from the convention.

Or am I just another whiny-ass liberal who's never satisfied?

I do want to say one thing about the convention, though: If the John Kerry that showed up last night had managed to make an appearance eight years ago, then The Shrub would have been a one-term president and only a footnote to history.



Wow, what a speech! None of that subtly nuanced word salad that Kerry was famous for in the 2008 campaign, when he sounded like he had a mouth full of mush half the time (and a mouthful of shit the other half). This time he came out hitting, and even managed to poke a little fun at himself in the process.