Pardon Me

I mean why not? Baby Doc is soon going to start slinging the presidential pardons around like Van Helsing with a bucket of holy water at a vampire convention. Eventually everyone in the Baby Doc Bush Maladministration will get one, from Dick(less) Cheney all the way down to the guy who cleaned Shooter's shotgun.

Why shouldn't I get one of those blanket pardons along with everyone else? It's not like I don't deserve it as much as those people.

What's that you say? I didn't commit enough serious felonies? I didn't torture anyone? I didn't subvert the US Constitution under the guise of "just following orders"? I didn't cough up a sufficient amount of cash to keep the BFEE afloat for eight years?

Oh. I guess I won't be getting any of that pardoning action myself, then. Okay, fine.

But you and I can do something to put the brakes on it. There's a petition to your congressional representatives that you can sign and put them on notice:

Dear Representative,
I urge you to co-sponsor Rep. Jerrold Nadler's H. Res. 1531 urging President Bush not to pardon senior members of his administration for crimes authorized by the President - and to investigate those crimes both in the House and the Justice Department, and prosecute if warranted.
(1) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the granting of preemptive pardons by the President to senior officials of his administration for acts they may have taken in the course of their official duties is a dangerous abuse of the pardon power;
(2) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the President should not grant preemptive pardons to senior officials in his administration for acts they may have taken in the course of their official duties;
(3) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that James Madison was correct in his observation that "[i]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds [to] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty";
(4) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that a special investigative commission, or a Select Committee be tasked with investigating possible illegal activities by senior officials of the administration of President George W. Bush, including, if necessary, any abuse of the President's pardon power; and
(5) the next Attorney General of the United States appoint an independent counsel to investigate, and, where appropriate, prosecute illegal acts by senior officials of the administration of President George W. Bush.
Sincerely,

Go on over to Democrats.com and sign the petition.

Even though I have a sinking feeling that it probably won't do any good, I signed it anyway, just to be on record that I oppose those impending presidential pardons.

I Think the Wrong Turkey Got ...

... well, you'll see what I mean after you take a look at this:

Yah sure, yah betcha!

"This was neat," she says at about two minutes in, apparently oblivious to the slaughter of living animals taking place about 20 feet behind her, and on camera during the entire interview.

"Neat"??? What is this, 1955? Who the fuck talks like that any more?

Jesus, am I ever happy that Obama won this election. Every time I see something like this, it reinforces my glee that we have now,thanks to the resounding Rethug defeat in the presidential election and the hobnailed boot given to Ted "Internet Tubes" Stevens in the Alaska senatorial race, absolutely NO FUCKING CHANCE to ever see a President Palin.

While There's Still Time...

...I've got to get in as many snarks and digs at the current resident of the White House as possible. Thank god for Stumble:

Pole Dancing Mormons to the ... Olympics????

From our Just When You Thought You'd Seen it All file comes this news. I thought it was a joke, something out of, I don't know, the Onion, but it appears to be true:

When we last saw the Mormons, they were attempting to murder love. Having succeeded on that, they’ve apparently moved on to more pressing concerns: getting pole dancing into the Olympics.
From CBS 2 in Salt Lake City comes this report of the newest craze to sweep Utah: pole dancing for fitness. If you remember this fad being big a few years ago, you’re right; I like to picture Utah kind of like the Middle East, where it takes about 20 years for pop culture to spread. The new Pat Benatar cassettes are just hitting Tehran now.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the woman who tries to justify her six-inch stripper heels by saying they’re great for the calf muscles. I’m just [sure] her husband, and his other wives, wouldn’t really mind if she wore them home.

Warning: Clicking on that link will take you to a page that shows Mormon housewives in ... spandex. Be sure your heart can take it.

But I do find it kind of odd that those Mormon housewives in spandex don't seem to be wearing their "holy temple garments". I thought that was a non-negotiable requirement, that all Mormons who are "eligible" to wear them had to wear them at all times... Go figure. I guess when it comes to chasing after that Almighty Dollar, even the so-called simon-pure Mormons aren't so finicky.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780 3795 3823 3830 3838 3845 3866 3875 3881 3886 3891 3896 3908 3921 3932 3943 3952 3960 3974 3987 3992 4004 4032 4036 4177 4180 4185 4186 4189 4197 4204

Total coalition forces dead: 314
Total Iraqi Dead: 900,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2627
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 2074
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 2031
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 1012
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 855

It is still 59 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

I'm Back. Sort of...

It's now been 48 hours since I had my wisdom teeth extracted, and I've more or less bounced back to reality. I spent something like 36 of those 48 hours in the P-Zone* and that helped a lot. At this point the real deep pain has gone away and now I'm left with some surface-healing pain, kind of like when you're recovering from something like strep throat.

She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed has abandoned the house (and me along with it) for the day, having had enough of nursing a cranky and recalcitrant patient to last her for a dozen years or so. I just took the last of my Vitamin P* and I'm ready to hit the couch for an afternoon of nodding out over reruns of Maverick, so today's posts may be short and may not make a lot of sense as the morning day wears on.

[P = Percocet^®]

Going Dark for a Few Days...

I'm having all four wisdom teeth out tomorrow. One of my friends said it was because I needed to be toned down a little -- I have so much "wisdom" that I'm a smart ass. Ha ha.

Over the years, every time I went to a new dentist, he'd tell me that those wisdom teeth ought to come out. I always asked why, and he told me that I'd be having problems with them eventually. So they were all right, I am having problems with them now. And I had prided myself on having a full set of original choppers, too. When I went to a dental clinic while I was living in So Cal, my dentist went out and rounded up all his dental buddies so they could see 32 teeth in one mouth.

I guess that it's a big deal in some parts of the country... Who knew?

My dentist has assured me that there will be "nothing to it" and he's already given me a prescription for some dyn-o-mite pain relievers, so I ought to be back on my game in no time.

Before I go, though, I just wanna say ... neener neener neener! Ted Stevens lost!!!!

Joementum? WTF?

What the fuck does Harry Reid think he's doing? Not only did Joementum Lieberman turn his back on the Democratic Party in the last election, he actively campaigned against President Obama with Grampaw McSame. For a while there it looked as if the two were joined at the hip.

So what does Harry Reid do? Rewards the turncoat motherfucker with allowing him to keep his chairmanship of, all things, the Senate Homeland Security Committee(!).

Just when I thought that the Dems were finally, at long last, growing some spine, they up and do this.

I guess they're still laboring under the illusion that they actually need Little Joe when it comes to that all-important 60-vote filibuster-proof majority. It's sad, really, since it would be very easy to do an end run around him with most issues.

With most issues that come before the Senate, there are almost always some turncoat Dems who will vote the wrong way, but that is generally balanced out by the remaining few "liberal" Repugs who, despite their party affiliation, will vote the right way on progressive issues (Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine and Arlen Spector from Pennsylvania, for example).

I'd like to see the Dems kick Little Joe to the curb. Who knows, depending on the outcome of the three Senate races yet to be decided, it could be that the Dems will win all three of them. That won't give us that holy 60, but it could bring us close enough. Then all President Obama has to do is offer a cabinet post to Spector and one of the two senators from Maine and, voilá, a veto-proof senate -- without Joementum -- after the Democratic governors appoint their replacements.

Then, Harry, can we kick his turncoat-traitor-Benedict-Arnold-Judas ass?

It's Not Just Oxy-Boy and Slanthead

As I posted last week about Mikey the Weiner, it's not just the major stars in the wingnut firmament (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et al.) that we have to be concerned about. Rightwing radio has an amazing -- and alarming -- control over a huge percentage of available AM radio band, and consequently the radio listening audience.

As a result there are any number of dangerous advocates of vicious rightwing violence floating in that vast liquid sewer of vitriol. Most of them have at best a local audience, but don't forget that a forest fire is made up entirely of individuals trees burning together.

Here's a short slideshow video that Media Matters put together:

Go ahead and read the accompanying story. Some of these pedestrian purveyors of poison I've heard of, others not. Nevertheless, these are among the most dangerously scurrilous attacks on a president that I've ever heard, and they are likely coming from the same people who were whining over the last eight years about the left "attacking" their president.

I gotta tell ya, I've not been one to pull my punches when it came to the George W. Bush naladminstration ("Der Monkey Fuehrer", "Baby Doc", "The BFEE", "the little fucker", etc.), but nothing I've written or said has come even close to the pure distilled hatred that keeps oozing from the slavering lips of this crowd.

No wonder that the trial balloon of the moribund Fairness Doctrine has been floated around several times lately.

Billy Kristol's Big Boner

Note that last word in the headline. Boner. It has two meanings in English, and I think you know which of them I'm talking about.

So, just in case you thought I was kidding in my overtext above the Sarah Palin "Toes" picture, today's Buzzflash columnist PM Carpenter nails Little Billy to the fucking wall:

It's official. Bill Kristol has gone mad. Humbuggingly mad. Wretchedly, distressingly mad.
Ever since Election Day, you see, Mr. Kristol has played his own Elmer Gantry to the GOP's Sister Sharon Falconer. As political flimflammery goes, no problem there.
Yet the boy seems genuinely, even savagely smitten. What's worse, the nation's unrequited love for his comely evangelist has thrown him into an absolutely irrational tizzy. It's a trifle pathetic, but titanically obvious.

Jeez, I hope it wasn't that photo on my blog that pushed the poor boy over the edge. Nawww, he was far gone long before that. He's been mooning around like a lovesick puppy for months now. It's a lot like junior high, when you think about it: The nerd with the adhesive tape holding his glasses together creeping around the fringes of cheerleading practice, hopelessly smitten by that forever unreachable head cheerleader.

Kind of all fits together, in a sad and pathetic sort of way, doesn't it?

The Birth Certificate Flap That Wasn't

It's pathetic, really. This is all they've got?

I'm talking about the big "birth certificate" flap that is being ginned up by wingnut media over whether President Obama's birth certificate is bogus, some kind of a Photoshopped facsimile that obscures the "fact" that he was born in Kenya or where-the-fuck-ever.

Now he's being sued by some knuckledragging kool-aid drinker in the wingnuttery to force him to "prove" that he's a "natural born" American citizen and therefore eligible to be president.

Bullshit. The certificate is there, online, for anyone to see, PLUS the state of Hawaii has certified that it is, in fact, an actual copy of the certificate they have in their own files AND the extremely reliable factcheck.org has verfied that the birth certificate is real, valid and true.

But none of that matters when it comes to the usual game of dirty-pool politics.

Most of this is being promoted by the talking heads mouths assholes of the radical right with their various talk radio shows, but the prime sponsor seems to be one Michael Weiner (aka "Michael Savage" -- I can see why he changed his name...), who has a little-listened-to show (he claims eight million listeners, which I sincerely doubt) syndicated through something called the Talk Radio Network. Other noted stars in the wingnut firmament syndicated by this same network include such wise and notable commentators on the American scene as Laura Ingaham, Rusty Humphries and Tammy Bruce.

In other words, not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Mikey the Weiner is all over this "issue", almost to the detriment of any and every other issue that he could be talking about. But where was Little Mikey eight years ago when people were asking for a similar documentary proof, specifically where was George W. Bush when he was supposed to be showing up for duty with the Texas Air National Guard?

Short answer: Nowhere to be found. What a fucking hypocrite Little Mikey is. But what can we expect from someone who was fired from a major cable network for attacking a caller who claimed to be not only gay but also infected with AIDS: "Oh, so you're one of those sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig; how's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig? You got nothing better to do than to put me down, you piece of garbage? You got nothing to do today? Go eat a sausage, and choke on it. Get trichinosis. Now do we have another nice caller here who's busy because he didn't have a nice night in the bathhouse who's angry at me today? Put another, put another sodomite on....no more calls?...I don't care about these bums; they mean nothing to me. They're all sausages."

The facts mean less than nothing to these people. All they can do, all they feel like doing, their only sexual outlet, lies in attacking the "left", wherever and whenever they can identify them.

So fuck you, Mikey the Weiner. May you rot in whatever hell you happen to believe in.

And all of you people who are part of the Reality-Based Community, here's the 411 on Obama's birth certificate, and likewise, the straight dope on the peripheral "issues" as to whether his mother was somehow too young to be "eligible" to give birth to a child who would be a "natural born" American citizen.

It's all a bunch of fucking bullshit, of course, but the truth really doesn't seem to matter to these fuckers. Give me a break. Even I, the original Pissed Off Veteran, was willing to give Baby Doc the benefit of the doubt between the time of the SCOTUS coup until he proved once and for all that he was the profoundly moronic and irretreviably evil asshole that history will undoubtedly judge him to be. Which sadly did not take long.

On a side note, I wish that the Seattle Air America station, KPTK (1090 on the AM dial), would boost their signal at night. It seems that all I can pick up in those wee hours of the morning, when I am teetering between staying up all night in fear of the American fascists and sleeping snugly in the knowledge that the progressive left has finally won and all is well, are those goddam wingnut stations.

Maybe I should take more drugs. A nice cocktail of Xanax and Ambien might do it...

A New Look at the Electoral Map

We're pretty used to seeing this kind of a map when it comes to displaying the results of the presidential election:

But we all know that, given the inherent biases of the standard map projection combined with our antiquated and non-democratic electoral college system, it's not a true representation of reality.

But all that has been solved by a guy named M.E.J. Newman over at the University of Michigan. Take a look at a cartogram that is much more representative of what really happened in this year's election, this one based on the relative strengths of the electoral vote:

Big difference, huh? He has a number of other ways of graphically representing the electoral map, so check it out.

It will help you think outside the box when it comes to this kind of stuff, and kudos to Mr. Newman for providing it to us.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780 3795 3823 3830 3838 3845 3866 3875 3881 3886 3891 3896 3908 3921 3932 3943 3952 3960 3974 3987 3992 4004 4032 4036 4177 4180 4185 4186 4189 4197

Total coalition forces dead: 314
Total Iraqi Dead: 900,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2620
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 2067
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 2024
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 1005
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 848

It is still 67 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

The Church of Latter Day H8te

Unsurprisingly, the Moron Mormon Church, aka "The Church of Latter Day Saints"(!), was in the Big Money behind the defeat of Prop 8 in California. As a result, today there was a demonstration totalling some 10,000 activists in front of the Mormon Church temple in ... New York City!!!???

Okay, I'm the first to admit total astonishment that the Morons Mormons even have one of their "temples" in the heart of Manhattan, but there it is.

Am I the only one who finds it just a little bit ironic that this cult church is coming out against so-called "gay" marriage, a cult church which, only a little over 100 years ago, had a "revelation" from god that their holy so-called "plural marriage" (i.e., polygamy), after being blessed by god and required for those who want to advance to the "Celestial Kingdom" was, all of a sudden, a big no-no?

A little historical fact on the church's prohibition of plural marriage: This "revelation" came about because the Territory of Utah wanted to become a full-fledged State, and the only way it could do it was to swear off that whole polygamy thing, which was anathema to the rest of the right-thinking Christian world.

That revelation pertained only to the secular law, and for many years afterward a large number of church leaders went underground and practiced their plural marriage anyway. This is historical fact, no matter how much the church today wants to put lipstick on that pig.

In fact, Mormon doctrine still, to this day, holds that so-called "celestial marriage" was instituted by god, and the only thing holding them back is that pesky revelation that curtailed it. In fact, Moron men even today can get themselves "sealed" in a temple ceremony to any number of willing women, which will guarantee to all of them, after shuffling off this mortal coil, a place at the table in the Celestial Kingdom.

And this is why so many of the the offshoots of Mormonism, such as the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints, home of wacked-out child-molester Warren Jeffs, not only practice but celebrate polygamy. According to Jeffs and the others of his ilk, the "official" church has been in apostasy after that famous revelation. And they do apparently have a case for believing that.

Anyway, back to reality. This church poured millions of dollars -- mostly through coercing its members in California and elsewhere to dig deep -- into defeating Proposition 8 in California.

Why? Because ironically they are pushing, of all things, a legal definition -- a legal dictum -- that "marriage" is limited to one man and one woman.

Okay, it's obvious that they don't really believe this, not deep down, so what's up with this unprecedented -- and probably unconstitutional -- battle?

My take on it is that they want their boy, The Mittster, Mitt Romney, to be the Rethug standard bearer in 2012, and this is groundwork to show that, hey, despite all you say, we in the Moron Church have been fundamentalist Christians all along.

Never mind all that crap you read about us not believing in the Trinity, about us doing baptisms for the dead (including those who don't want it, such as all of the Jewish victims of The Holocaust), and especially about us not displaying the Christian cross on our churches. We're just like you.

Oh, and there's also another point of Moron "prophecy" at play here: One of their "prophet, seer and revelators" claimed that the church will, in the Last Days (which we have been in, according to them, since 1836 or so), somehow "save" the US Constitution, which will be "hanging by a thread".

I agree that this thread is already there and it's unraveling. But the Morons are NOT going to be the ones to save it. Instead they're there among the rabble and mob, slashing away at it with machetes and blasting it with flame throwers.

It Ain't Over Till It's Over

That's an immortal phrase by the late great Yogi "I never said half the stuff I said" Berra, and it's never been more true than in the state of Alaska this election.

Convicted felon and doddering hump of nasty senility Ted "The Internet is a series of tubes" Stevens has, as of this morning, fallen behind Mark Begich in the vote count.

With something like 20,000 votes left to count, Begich has leaped from a 3,000+ deficit to an 814-vote lead. If this trend continues, it's not only bye-bye to Nasty Ted, but also to the frightening possibility of Senator Sarah Palin.

As tempting as it is to do a "neener-neener" now, I'm going to hold it in until it's official.

Obama on Religion, Church and State

I just stumbled on the complete text of President Barack Obama's 2004 Chicago Sun Times interview with Cathleen Falsani, and it is a fascinating read.

Here are some excerpts:

I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I'm not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I've got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others.
I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it's best comes with a big dose of doubt. I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.
Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I'm a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. I am a great admirer of our founding charter, and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming, and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root ion this country.
As I said before, in my own public policy, I'm very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics.

There's a lot more interesting stuff in this interview, and it ought to be required reading for those knuckledragging Radical Christianist morons on the right who are still, to this day, spouting off on wingnut radio that Obama is a Muslim, he's the Antichrist, etc etc etc.

Not that they would actually understand it, even if by some quirk of nature they were actually able to read it...

Guns Flying Off the Shelves

I always read the web version of my hometown newspaper, to see what's going on in the county where I spent my teenage years and graduated high school, and this morning I found an interesting story.

Guns of all stripe are flying off the shelves of gun dealers, pawn shops and sporting goods stores, in the erroneous -- the insane -- belief that President Obama will somehow try to confiscate them from the hands of Americans and prevent them from buying more.

This is as stupid as it sounds, but that won't stop the knuckledragging redneck morons, there and across the country, from believing everything they've been told by the kool-aid-dispensing NRA, who trots out this shit every election, as regular as clockwork.

Obama is on record as saying "As a general principle, I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms", but he also realizes that there are reasonable restrictions that government can place on that right.

The NRA holds the extreme position that any restriction on gun ownership is unconstitutional. Carried to its logical end, I guess that Wayne LaPierre and those of his ilk would have no problem with me and you owning suitcase nukes and rocket launchers. I don't think that even the NRA is advocating that we all have a right to possess those, so apparently they are in agreement after all that some kind of restrictions are necessary.

(And speaking of the NRA, don't let's forget that they were pretty slow on the uptake when, after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the government was confiscating legally-owned and legally-possessed guns from the hands of black people. It wasn't until they were shamed into action that they made a late and pretty unconvincing argument against it.)

Reasonable and responsible gun ownership is a right guaranteed by the US Constitution, but over the years the NRA has been very successful at displaying their version of the boogieman, a "fascist" Democratic president slavering over the possibility that he can confiscate every single gun in this country.

Speaking as a meat-eating gun-toting ultra-liberal redneck myself, this is of course a total bunch of crap. I was at a recreational barbecue a few summers back, wearing my Veterans for Kerry hat, and one of my fellow guests started mouthing off on Kerry and the Democrats wanting to take all of our guns away (you know, the same old story, the same old song and dance).

I said, "Hold it, Luther. Can you imagine any possible scenario in which the Democrats could successfully confiscate every handgun in this country? Your handgun? Any way at all?"

"Well," he conceded, "no, I can't."

"Neither can I," I said. "So let's have some more of those ribs."

I don't think I made a Kerry voter out of the guy, but I do think I pulled some of that NRA wool off his eyes.

Is the Bush Boy Hitting the Bottle Again?

It sure as hell looks like it. Watch this video and you be the judge:

Okay, fooled you. It's a good job, though, and what with everything the poor fellow has been through the last eight years, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

[HT to my good friend BAC over at Yikes! for turning me on to this video.]

And You Thought Michael Was the Funny Palin

Here's what Monty Python's Flying Circus alum John Cleese has to say about Sarah, the other Palin:

[HT to The Truffle for this video]

I Just Couldn't Stay Away

Okay, my "vacation" from blogging is over. I just couldn't stay away -- there's too much going on.

Thanks to all of you who expressed such good wishes and thoughts when I went on this abbreviated hiatus. The good news is that I'm back!

Longtime readers of this blog know that I am an activist with Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Last weekend I went to our yearly conference in Washington DC, and there's nothing like being around and among a bunch of like-minded activists to clear your mind, reset your inner clock, reboot your internal computer and reinvigorate you for the coming battles.

An added plus was a special "bloggers meetup" on Saturday night of Bloggers Against Theocracy, where I got to have my picture taken with Rev. Barry Lynn, the Executive Director of American United (and who could have had a stellar career as a standup comedian, if he wanted to):

At the meetup, I also got to reconnect with several of my blogger-buddies, such as BAC of Yikes!, Alicia Morgan of Last Left Turn Before Hooterville -- who also just published her terrific new book, The Price of Right: How the Conservative Agenda Has Failed America (and Always Will) -- and DCup from Politits:

There were a lot of other fellow bloggers there, including a number of big names in the blogosphere, which made me feel sort of like an "air-guitar" player suddenly thrust on stage with Led Zeppelin. I'm still in a kind of "blogger groupie heaven" mindset, but here's the complete list:

• Blue Gal
  
• Correntewire
  
• Dispatches from the Culture Wars
  
• DistributorcapNY
  
• Fran I Am
  
• Jesus General
  
• Last Left Turn Before Hooterville
  
• Mainstream Baptist
  
• Mock Paper Scissors
  
• Nailing Jello to the Wall
  
• Neural Gourmet
  
• No Blood for Hubris
  
• Pharyngula
  
• Politits
  
• Yikes!
  
• Zaius Nation
  

A deep thank you to each and every one of my fellow bloggers, for everything you do in the fight against theocracy.

Okay, back on topic: If any of you readers of this blog have not yet joined AU, I strongly encourage you to check us out and get involved. Regardless of what you might have heard in the CPM*, the evil legions of the Religious Right are NOT dead. They are not even on life support, despite the drubbing handed out to them in this election. They are still an ominous and looming -- and well-heeled -- threat to American freedom, and AU stands at the bulwark of the defense of those freedoms.

We need your help. It's as simple as that.

You can join us for as little as $25 a year, and there's probably an active chapter in your local area. If there isn't, you can always start one.

Our freedoms are too precious for us to allow them to be swept away by the Radical Christianists, the American Taliban. And they are now too fragile to stand without our help.

[* Capitalist Pig Media]

A Watershed Moment in American History

I spent the evening at The Vault, a local nightclub that had been taken over by the county Democratic organization for our election night party, and it was a crazy time. When Obama won Ohio, the math was unavoidable, that it was only a matter of waiting until the polls closed on the west coast and he officially got the electoral votes of California, Oregon and my native Washington to push him over the magic number of 270.

At ten seconds to eight o'clock we started chanting the "10-9-8..." countdown, and MSNBC on the big screen called the election for Obama at exactly two seconds after 8:00. The place went nuts. It was like New Years Eve on Times Square combined with winning the Super Bowl. My ears are still ringing from the jet-plane-decibel level.

We did it, you and I and everyone else who worked such long and hard hours getting out the vote, in every city, town, village and precinct in the country. A deep heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you.

Senator McCain's concession speech was, ironically, the finest speech of his entire campaign. Who knows, had we seen that McCain during the campaign he might have done a lot better. That was the 2000-model McCain at his finest, the McCain that I thought was gone, the McCain that I missed.

As of this morning, the count is 349 Obama and 162 for McCain. I'd call that a landslide. I'd call that a mandate.

But mostly I call it a clear and unequivical repudiation of Anti-American Republican partisanship, greed and corruption. After eight long years of the most evil maladminstration in the history of this country, Americans finally felt that they'd had enough, finally woke up and ignored the fear-mongering attacks from the Right, finally decided to vote their own issues instead of those ginned up by those slimy muckracking talk radio assholes.

This is only the beginning. There's still a lot of work to do to roll back the horrible results of eight years of the BFEE. We all need to give President Obama the blood, toil, tears and sweat and we need to support him 100% in getting our progressive agenda instituted. It won't be easy, since wingnut radio will try to cut him -- and us -- off at the knees at every turn. Fuck 'em. In the words of Der Monkey Fuehrer back in 2000, we've got political capital and we intend to spend it.

And as for me? I'm taking a well-deserved break. As constant reader mrln commented, I've been working way too hard...

See you in a month or so.

It's Election Day, So...

Get out and VOTE!

Sarah Palin Camel Toes

Okay, I'm the first to admit that it likely isn't HER. Nevertheless, here's a jackoff photo for my wingnut readers of Sarah showing "toes":

[Thanks to Stumble Upon for the image.]

Three Days to Go -- Don't Relax Just Yet

It's only three days to the most important election of our lives. Barack Obama is ahead in every major poll and it appears that the Rethug party will finally be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Don't believe it for a minute. We can't afford to relax and coast on to Nov 4th. Our enemies aren't going to quit, and neither are we.

Now is the time for all of us to work as hard as we can to get out the vote on Nov 4th and make sure that Obama wins by such an overwhelming majority that the fuckers can't pull any shenanigans and try to claim that his victory was tainted by vote fraud, etc.

Believe me they are trying like hell to pull that off, what with the scurrilous attacks on ACORN, etc.

Don't let them do it! Call your local Democratic Party HQ and volunteer to go doorbelling, to work the phone banks, to do anything and everything you can to make sure that the Rethugs don't steal another election.

Go! Now! On November 5th we'll be toasting each other and basking in the reflected glow of a decisive Obama victory. But it all comes down to you. And me. And everyone else who is sick and tired of Rethug politics destroying our country.

Another Veteran Speaks Out Against McCain

Watch this:

This is how America's smart veterans are seeing the McCain campaign.

McPalin Goin' Rogue

Just in case you missed this on The Daily Show:

<a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/" target="_blank">The Daily Show: Goin' Rogue</a>

The Daily Show: Goin' Rogue

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780 3795 3823 3830 3838 3845 3866 3875 3881 3886 3891 3896 3908 3921 3932 3943 3952 3960 3974 3987 3992 4004 4032 4036 4177 4180 4185 4186 4189

Total coalition forces dead: 314
Total Iraqi Dead: 700,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2606
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 2053
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 2010
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 994
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 834

It is still 81 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

I Haven't Gone MIA -- And Neither Should You

You may have noticed that I've been fairly quiet with the posts lately. Not up to my usual output. Okay, mea culpa. But here's why: I've been volunteering my time at my local Democratic Party HQ, calling new voters and "weak" Democrats to remind them to vote for Barack Obama.

And, if that wasn't taking up enough of my time, I'm also trying to piece together the pictures and video that I took on my vacation to Vietnam into a coherent whole.

Yeah, I know: "Whine whine whine."

Still, since this is THE most important election of our lives -- certainly of my life, and I'm fucking OLD -- let me encourage all of you to get out of the house these last few days before November 4th and DO SOMETHING!!!

Contact your local Obama Campaign HQ or your local Democratic Party, and volunteer to make telephone calls, canvas door-top-door, or even fulfill a support role by getting coffee and sandwiches for those who are doing the front-line work. In this election, every vote counts! Your phone call to a voter can make the difference between that person blowing off the election or actually casting a ballot for Barack Obama.

Get out there and help. This election is too important for all of us for you not to help.

Besides, you'll meet a lot of really cool people and most likely you'll make some new friends. Four years ago, when I was active in the Veterans for Kerry movement, I met two people who are now among my very closest friends.

Another GOOPer for Obama

Former US Senator Larry Pressler, who was the first Vietnam veteran to serve in the senate and a Republican from South Dakota, came out today and said that he's already voted for Barack Obama.

His reason? The usual: "It's the economy, stupid." That's what other Rethugs who switched this last week said as well.

Pretty sad when big wheels in your own party jump ship and vote for that uppity Negro, isn't it, Grampy? Don't even bother setting your alarm for the day after Election Day. You'll have no reason to get out of bed.

Oh, and Pressler does take pains to say he's not leaving the Rethug Party -- instead he's going to stay and "reform" the party.

Yeah, we'll see how that works out for him

This is Brilliant!

Okay, just supposing that the Rethugs manage to pull some of those senatorial seats out of the fire and hang on to them, which would make for a less-than-veto-proof majority for the Dems.

According to David Lindhoff over at Buzzflash, all Obama has to do is nominate a couple or three "liberal-ish" GOP senators to cabinet or near-cabinet-level positions from states that have Democratic governors.

Maine's Susan Collins or Olympia Snow are obvious choices. Both of them have exhibited that strong independent stream that Down Easters are notorious for. And on the other side of the country, Oregon's Gordon Smith has been running so hard away from Baby Doc, Grampy and Barbie that he's eligible for a world speed record. He's been campaigning almost as an ally of Obama anyway.

None of these individuals would turn down the prestige of a cabinet post, and both states have Democratic governors who would choose fellow Democrats as their replacments.

It would have the dual result of getting that 60-vote majority, and it would piss off the Rethugs no end.

Nyuck-nyuck-nyuck.

GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!

Okay, maybe I'm crowing just a little too much, but it's gratifying to see the verdict come down on Ted Stevens, just one of many corrupt Alaskan politicians.

But what do you want to bet that even though he was found GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!, the mouth-breathing Palin-fantasizing double-digit-IQ-flaunting Alaskan GOP voting base will vote him back into the senate next week?

Of course it's going to be a little difficult for him to actually be present in the senate if he's doing a five-year-term on each of the charges. But that doesn't bother your average Alaskan, apparently. They'd rather not even be a part of the United States -- and their putative Vice President is right along with them.

So here's Farnsworth's take on it: Fuck Ted Stevens and fuck Sarah Palin. I remember clearly when MY senator, Maria Cantwell, tried to take on Stevens and his fucked-up committee when the Big Oil maggots magnates were invited to make a joint testimony appearance and Maria was gaveled down for her temerity in suggesting that these corporate assholes ought to be -- gasp! -- sworn in before testifying. Old Teddy basically told her to shut the fuck up.

Shoe's on the different foot now, ain't it, Teddy? Too bad you won't be around for the new fitting, since you are going to JAIL! JAIL! JAIL!, motherfucker.

Now, Teddy, for a change, you can shut the fuck up.

But here's hoping that the Alaskans that still have a soul will finally see the light and vote the corrupt old fucker OUT! OUT! OUT! That will give the Democrats a 60-vote veto-proof majority, and we won't have to rely on turncoat LIEberman for that all important swing vote.

And the Rethugs? Fuck 'em. They fucked us over for the last twenty years. Now they can feel what it's like to be on the outside with their snotty noses pressed up against the glass, begging like Oliver Twist, "please sir I want some more".

Fuck 'em. That's what Farnsworth says.

Palin Strips for ... Obama?

This is wrong in SO many ways:

"Are You Joking?" Biden Slaps Wingnut

"Are you joking?" That was the question that Joe Biden asked this wingnut "journalist" when she asked if Obama was a Marxist.

I don't know who the fuck this Barbara West is, but she really needs to go back to J-School and learn some basics. Watch Joe Biden slap the shit out of this bitch:

Actually, a half-a-second Google search came up with the real Barbara West, who is an anchorwoman on WFTV Orlando, and whose husband has donated money to (surprise) four Rethug candidates.

The New McCarthyism -- Just Like the Old McCarthyism

Check out this extremely disturbing video from a McSame-Barbie rally in Colorado:

The idiocy of the Moron-American Voting Bloc has never been on better display.

Check out the shouts of "socialist!" and "communist!" coming from the foul innards of this crowd of race-baiting mouth-breathing knuckledraggers.

When we finally do have a President Obama come January, I hope the Secret Service will double up on his personal protection. These are just the kind of reactionary neo-fascist marginally-functional assholes who wouldn't think anything of popping a cap on him.

Another Endorsement for Obama -- from Alaska!

Today the Anchorage Daily News, the largest paper in the state, came out with their endorsement of Barack Obama:

Gov. Palin has shown the country why she has been so successful in her young political career. Passionate, charismatic and indefatigable, she draws huge crowds and sows excitement in her wake. She has made it clear she's a force to be reckoned with, and you can be sure politicians and political professionals across the country have taken note. Her future, in Alaska and on the national stage, seems certain to be played out in the limelight.
Yet despite her 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. [Emphasis added]

These are the people that know her best, citizens of her own state, and even they are saying what should be obvious to the rest of the knuckledraggers over in the Rethug camp: She's just not ready for prime time.

When it Comes Down to Food...

...it's easy to understand. My friend D-Cup over at Politits has come up with a sure-fire fool-proof way of explaining Economics 101 to the masses.

Just think of it in terms of food:

The Law of Diminishing Returns
Let's say I'm craving Oreos. The first one tastes fabulous! Yum, yum, yum. The next three are delicious! As I continue to finish off the whole damn bag? Each consumed Oreo doesn't taste as great as the last.

There's more, including the immortal "potato chips as trickle-down economics". Go ahead and read the whole thing. It's the most succinct and understandable explanation of the "dismal science" that I've ever seen.

That Damned Elusive Birth Certificate

It's got to be the sign of a campaign in desperate disarray. Now there's a big flap in the wingnuttery that Barack Obama's sudden trip to Hawaii has nothing to do with his sick grandmother, and everything to do with a hail-mary attempt to "suppress" the "truth" about his birth certificate.

I was at my local Democratic HQ this afternoon making some get-out-the-vote phone calls, reminding Washington state residents that they need to fill out and get back their absentee ballots, when the woman sitting next to me hung up her phone and kind of groaned in frustration.

Turns out that she had just called a full household of registered voters who had, at the last minute (or so the person on the other end of the phone claimed), switched their allegiance from Barack Obama to John McCain ... solely on the issue of Obama's "questionable" birth certificate.

Okay, for beginners I don't believe that any rational person is going to switch his/her allegiance based on this scurrilous rumor about Obama's birth certificate, and I told that to my coworker, which calmed her down some (she was practically in tears over the issue, which is probably what the asshole wanted).

And second of all, why in the fuck would Obama wait until the 11th hour of the campaign and only then make a special trip to Hawaii to suppress whatever negative information that questionable birth certificate held?

If you'll recall, the BFEE went to great pains to suppress any and all evidence about Baby Doc's questionable Texas Air National Guard "service", long before he even announced that he was running.

If you want the truth about Obama's "questionable" birth certificate, you don't need to go any further than Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp

But as I say, this is illustrative of a campaign in its final death throes, when they are willing to pull out all of the stops. It wouldn't surprise me if they suddenly come up with an obviously Photoshopped picture of Obama fucking sheep and stomping puppies at the same time.

Sadly, this kind of shit usually works with the Moron-American Voting Bloc. But I'm glad to see that that particular group seems to be shrinking daily. I think that most American voters are now of the "we won't be fooled again" school.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780 3795 3823 3830 3838 3845 3866 3875 3881 3886 3891 3896 3908 3921 3932 3943 3952 3960 3974 3987 3992 4004 4032 4036 4177 4180 4185 4186

Total coalition forces dead: 314
Total Iraqi Dead: 700,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2599
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 2046
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 2003
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 984
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 827

It is still 88 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

Breaking News! Farnsworth Responsible for Rethug Win!

It turns out, in a stunning turn of events, that I, your humble host and blogger, is solely, single-handedly responsible for the election of Grampaw Dribbles and Caribou Barbie.

Here's the video:

Don't let this happen! Watch the video and then send to all of your friends. It's easy and quick, and you'll be doing your part to prevent this from happening.

* * * * * *

Update: Okay, when you click on the video link, you don't get the personalized version. But with a few simple keystrokes, you can change the words "non-voter" into the name of your friend, your spouse, your boss, your kids...whoever. Trust me, it's pretty cool and very effective.

Tweety Rips Palin on Role of VP

I've had my own problems with Chris "Tweety" Matthews over the years, but when he's right, he's right.

Here's a video in which he rips Caribou Barbie -- and her talking head mouthpiece Nancy Pfotenhauer -- a new one over what exactly is the constitutional role of the US vice president:

Frankly, I didn't know the boy had it in him. And poor Nancy P. She does yeoman's work in trying to defend the indefensible, and Tweety does give her props for that, but basically she was under water when she went in to this, and doesn't come out any better.

Better Than a $400 Haircut

Okay, I've tried to restrain myself from jumping all over the Sarah Palin $150,000 clothes budget, but I just can't help myself.

Jeez, that infamous $400 haircut that sank the campaign of John Edwards is starting to look like a real bargain now.

I guess ole Sarah "hockey-mom I'm-just-one-of-you" Palin just couldn't be seen in the kind of clothes the great unwashed (i.e. the rest of us) have to make do with. You know, off-the-rack stuff from Target and Wal-Mart. Oh nooooo, she has to spend $150,000 at places like Nieman Marcus (aka "Needless Markup") and Saks Fifth Avenue.

But what the hell, it's not like it's HER money. No, this is campaign money from the RNC. If I were some poor schlep who sent a few bucks to the RNC to help elect Grampy McSame, and then I learned that this lipstick-on-a-pig VP candidate squandered this kind of money on fucking clothes, I'd be so goddam pissed off that I would... well, insert your own "I would" here. You know what I mean.

I mean really -- $150,000 for clothes???!!! That's more than I, plus my wife and all my children and grandchildren (and now my great-grandchild) have spent -- or will ever spend -- on clothing in our entire lives!

The fucking nerve of the Rethugs and Grampy McSame, to try to pass that lipstick-on-a-pig skanky-assed hockey-mom off as some kind of working class one-of-us "real" person.

Oh, and all you rightwing knuckledragging mouthbreathing morons who get a big boner just watching her wink at you -- only you! -- on television?

All I have to say is this: I'd rather slam it in a car door.

More on McCain and Veterans

The AFL-CIO has announced the formation of a Union Veterans Council to fight back against John McCain and his totally specious, made-up-out-of-thin-air, pulled-from-his ass claims that he has always fought for veterans' benefits and veterans' rights.

Here's the president of the new council, Mark Ayers and a couple of others, speaking on McCain putting veterans last:

Here's more from Ayers:

"Not only has McCain voted the wrong way on veterans' issues - - such as opposing increased funding for veterans' health care the last four years in a row — but he also doesn’t support middle class people's issues," Mr. Ayers said. "He wants to tax people’s health care benefits, and supports unfair trade deals, including NAFTA."

Spread the word among your veteran friends, and tell 'em what Farnsworth always says: A veteran voting for John McCain is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.

McSame Drops the "S" Bomb; Barbie Piles On: "Me Too Ya Betcha!"

Is Obama a socialist? Both Grampaw Dribbles and Caribou Barbie think so. And so does my new BFF, thermblog.

The short answer is bullshit. But don't take my word for it. Look up socialism for yourself, and then take a look at this little video from The Daily Show.

As usual, Jon Stewart nails it:

Watch the whole thing, and see Grampaw fumbling around trying to explain his own "socialist" share-the-wealth views -- "When you reach a certain level of comfort, there's nothing wrong with paying more [taxes]".

Of course that was a long time ago, back when Grampy still had a soul. Things change, times change, and leopards can apparently change their spots.

Al Qaeda Endorses McCain!

Well, kinda sorta. On a pro-Al Qaeda website this week there was a post that supporters of Al Qaeda would welcome another terrorist attack on the US as a way of "ushering in a McCain presidency":

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida [sic] will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."
"If al-Qaida carries out a big operation against American interests," the message said, "this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it."

So while this falls a little short of an official endorsement, it's still an indication that even Al Qaeda recognizes that a McCain presidency would be beneficial to themselves in particular, even though when it comes to the rest of the world, uh...not so much.

Palin as President

As scary as that thought is, here's a website that will bring it into terrifyingly sharp reality: Palin as President.

Move your cursor around the picture and watch stuff happen. Click and hear The Chick Who Would Be Prez utter some of her famous soundbites.

I especially like what happens when you click on the door on the left.

It's bitingly funny political satire, and the authors promise to update it each day between now and election day. Check it out.

Now This Is Just Plain Stupid

Longtime readers of this blog know that I used to be a state employee here in the "Other Washington", so I know what I'm talking about when I say that Sarah Palin is stupid.

What am I talking about? Only the news that Caribou Barbie inappropriately charged her state over $20K in "travel expenses" to take her children along with her on expensive junkets.

The Associated Press broke the story yesterday, and it's a doozy:

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.
In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.
Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor's children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting official state business.
As governor, Palin justified having the state pay for the travel of her daughters — Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; and Piper, 7 — by noting on travel forms that the girls had been invited to attend or participate in events on the governor's schedule.
But some organizers of these events said they were surprised when the Palin children showed up uninvited, or said they agreed to a request by the governor to allow the children to attend.
Several other organizers said the children merely accompanied their mother and did not participate. The trips enabled Palin, whose main state office is in the capital of Juneau, to spend more time with her children.

Jesus, what is the matter with these people? Is the background noise of corruption so goddam high over on the right wing that even the bureaucratic equivalent of shoplifting seems normal and acceptable?

When I was a state employee, falsifying travel expense vouchers was something that only the stupid did. Smart people didn't do it because it was so easy to get caught. We even had a commissioner -- the HMFIC of the agency -- lose his job over his abuse of travel reimbursements. And on first examination, what he did was not in substance different from what Caribou Barbie did.

And his now-infamous arrogant response when he got busted? "That's chump change."

And that's pretty much how it appears that Caribou Barbie sees it as well.

Vice President Palin? I don't think so.

McSame on Letterman

Why the fuck is it that the only representative of The Media who is willing to take on Grampaw McSame with the kind of questions that journalists used to be known for and pride themselves on, is the host of a late night comedy show?

Why is it that David Letterman, and not Katie Couric, Bob Schieffer, Charles Gibson, or any of the other overpaid and slothful representatives of the CPM*, is the only one willing to pull out the stops and put some direct journalistic questions to the Rethug nominee? (Okay, to be fair, I think Olbermann would be drilling into Grampaw if he had the chance, but the odds of Grampaw actually going on Countdown are roughly the same as my chances of winning the Nobel Prize.)

Here's the complete video:

It's worth watching the whole thing. And don't be fooled by the various highlight clips edited by the CPM. This is the full interview, and while Grampaw is making an effort to try to foist himself off on late-night America as an affable neo-Reaganesque fun-guy-you-can-have-a-beer-with leader, you can tell that he's doing some real stretching to try to pull it off. Plus it's just kind of creepy watching him try to be all jokey-ha-ha with Letterman.

And his praise of Caribou Barbie is just plain desperately weird. He's "absolutely" convinced that she's presidential material, based apparently on the fact that she oversaw a state bureaucracy with 24,000 employees. (Note to Grampaw: The US has a population of over 300 million.)

Watch Grampaw start to wiggle at about 20 minutes in when Letterman nails him with his "relationship" with G. Gordon Liddy: "Um, I've met him"...

Oh, and catch that "secret plan to get Bin Laden" starting about six minutes in. Do you remember the last presidential candidate who had a "secret plan"? Richard Tricky-Dick Nixon, 40 years ago in the 1968 election. He had a "secret plan" to end the war, and sure enough, nearly four years and 20,000+ dead Americans later, the war ended ... for the US. The Vietnamese, not so much.

[* Capitalist Pig Media]

You Want Rights? No, That's Only on TV

That's what a cop said to a protesting IVAW member at Hofstra U the night of the debate, after he was put in handcuffs.

Here's the video:

Stick around to the end, where arrestee and Iraq veteran Adam Kokesh kept his hidden microphone on after he was handcuffed by the cops.

"You want rights?" the cop says. "That's only on TV. That's on Cops. This is New York..."

Unfortunately, it's not only New York, as we saw with the illegal roundup and detention of lawful protesters at the Nuremburg Rally Rethug Convention in Minneapolis this summer.

[HT to constant reader jae for this video]

Waiting for Godot

Ever since the trial balloon went up last week, it's been a little like waiting for Godot, anticipating the announcement by General Colin Powell that he's supporting Obama.

There was even some speculation that it would be a stealth attack against Obama, and he would actually end up endorsing fellow Repugnican Grampaw McCain.

Well, that didn't happen, and he finally came out today for Obama.

"I firmly believe that at this point in America's history, we need a president that will not just continue, even with a new face and with the changes and with some maverick aspects, who will not just continue basically the policies that we have been following in recent years," Powell said.

And John McSame? Stick a fork in him. He's done.

Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground

A lot has been hacked up and spit out by the Rethugs in the last few weeks over Barack Obama's supposed ties to "domestic terrorist" Bill Ayers.

So here's a quick quiz: Off the top of your head, how many Americans died as the result of bombings by the Weatherman Faction (which became known the Weather Underground, probably after several of their female members pointed out the obvious sexism in their name)?

Okay, I know it was a long time ago, but what would you think? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? More than a hundred?

Well, from listening to Unstable and Unable the last couple of weeks, you might think it was even greater than that, so it might surprise you to know that the death toll from all of the bombs built by the Weather Underground was this: Exactly THREE.

And ironically, those three were members of the group, who were blown up in 1970 in a freak explosion in Greenwich Village when the bomb they were attempting to assemble went off prematurely.

Remember that number: Three individuals, all of whom were active members of the group. No "civilians" were injured by the Weather Underground in their brief and inept rise from obscurity to fame to infamy and back again to obscurity.

Oh, and let's not forget that Bill Ayres was never convicted of any "terrorist" acts. Not a single one. When he and Bernadine Dorhn turned themselves in, way back in 1980, she was given three years probation and a fine of $15,000. All charges against Ayres were dropped.

So where's the problem for the Rethugs? They have only one: Desperation.

The Endorsement Race

Not that it means very much these days, but Obama is way ahead of Grampaw McSame in endorsements by newspaper editorial boards. Including such up-til-now-conservative bastions as the Chicago Tribune, which just broke a 167-year record of endorsing Republicans to come out in favor of Obama.

More than 55 newspaper editorial boards have now come out for Barack Obama. And McCain? A sad second place at only 14.

Jeez, I almost feel sorry for the old fucker. He waited all these years to get the nomination, he sold his soul to achieve it, he's now doddering around at the gates of senility, and what happens? He self-destructs along with the American economy, and his dreams of greatness are dashed on the rocks of "socialism"...

Not the "almost" in that last paragraph. Actually I'm lying. I don't feel at bit sorry for him. Once you sell your soul for political gain, you give up the right to expect sympathy.

Fuck you, Johnny. I could have seen myself actually voting for you in 2000. Too bad you got fucked by the BFEE and apparently liked it so much you came back for seconds: "Please sir, may I have some more?"

Now's the time for you to mosey on back to that rancho of yours in Arizona and slowly fade away like the old soldier (scuze me, sailor) that you are.

Bye now. Write if you get work.

A Blast from the Past -- A Scary One

How precocious is this? How prescient? How astoundingly correct?

Here's an excerpt from Der Monkey Fuehrer's first televised speech to the nation in 2001:

"Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over. My fellow Americans, at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

Of course this is not from his real speech. That one was full of lies and distortions and bullshit. No, this is from the speech that he could have given -- should have given. Unfortunately, it was left up to the satiric newspaper The Onion to write and publish it. Way back in 2001. How did they know?

Okay, trick question. Anyone who was not in a Rethug kool-aid-induced political coma back in 2001 could have figured it out. Nevertheless, hats off to the staff at The Onion for getting it so perfect.

Friday by the Numbers

Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780 3795 3823 3830 3838 3845 3866 3875 3881 3886 3891 3896 3908 3921 3932 3943 3952 3960 3974 3987 3992 4004 4032 4036 4177 4180 4185

Total coalition forces dead: 314
Total Iraqi Dead: 700,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2452
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1912
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1860
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

Number of days that the the Vice President has NOT shot a man in the face: 844
Number of days that the Bush Twins are still not pregnant with baste-'em-or-waste-'em Snowflake babies: 680

It is still 95 days until the end of the BFEE Maladministration.

When Nuance Doesn't Work

Here's the original video of Obama talking to Joe the Faux Plumber at the rope line on Sunday. This is the same guy that McCain dragged out 21 times during last night's debate as somehow representative of the American people.

As my old pappy used to say, when nuance doesn't work, kick 'em in the nuts.

Of course that's just not possible for a presidential candidate, but sometimes god I wish that it was.

Joe the Plumber?

Grampaw McSame shamelessly invoked the name of Joe the Plumber from working class Toledo Ohio in last night's debate no fewer than 21 times, using him as some kind of example as to how Obama's economic policies will be the worst thing for the country since the Great Depression, how they will drive poor Joe into poverty, take his kids away, repossess his big screen tv, wreck his car and kill his dog. And that's just for starters.

Got that? Twenty-one times. If we'd had any clue that Joe the Plumber would figure that prominently, we could have included him in our Debate Drinking Game instead of "my friends", which got short shrift last night.

So who the fuck is this Joe the Plumber guy anyway? His full name is Joseph Wurzelbacher, and beyond that bit of knowledge, the trail grows cold quickly.

In fact, it appears that no one seems to know for sure. He doesn't have a business license in Ohio -- he doesn't even have a license to be a plumber in Ohio -- he doesn't have a listing in the Toledo area yellow pages or white pages, and he's not even registered to vote!

None of that is stopping the CPM from eating this shit up like the slavering ravenous curs that they are.

So, aside from the inconvenient fact that his citing $250,000 a year profit(?) from the business he's about to buy fits so very neatly into Obama's cutoff point for raising taxes, is he genuine?

Short answer: No fuckin' way.

Consider this odd "coincidence". Joe Wurzelbach is a close relative of Robert Wurzelbach of Milford Ohio. Okay, I can hear you yawning, but here's the clincher: Robert Wurzelbach of Milford Ohio is the son-in-law of ... Charles Keating!

And you remember Charles Keating, don't you? Grampaw was one of the infamous Keating Five (which in fact would have been the Keating Four without his eager participation).

Joe the Plumber and Charles the Crook.

So it seems sort of, I don't know, obvious that Joe was a McCain stooge when he confronted Obama at that ropeline, and he remains one now. Despite the desperate fawning being lavished on him by the CPM at nearly every turn.

Okay Joe the Plumber, you've had your fifteen minutes of fame. Now go on and buy that plumbing business that you've always dreamed of. Oh, what's that you say? You don't actually have the estimated one million dollars that a business that has that kind of profit would cost? Maybe your buddy Charles Keating can help you out. He must have a lot of cash to throw around, now that he's not using it to bribe US Senators.

And, as Steve Young asks, "if he's really a plumber, where's the ass crack?"

See also here, here and here for more exposure of Joe the Plumber, and Steve, here's your answer.

What Kind of Amazing Grace?

Evidently this is video day. Here's an evocative and deeply moving music video from Ian Rhett:



This needs to be seen by all of my Radical Christianist readers -- both of you -- and maybe you can answer Ian's question: What kind of amazing grace does it take?

Hey Sarah Palin Music Video

As they used to say on AM radio back in the day, "and the hits just keep comin' atcha!"

It's just two people singing the lyrics in front of a television that we, the viewers, can't see. You wouldn't think this would work, but it does. Great job, you two!

One Toke Over the Line -- on Lawrence Welk???

This isn't political; it's just weird:

My first impulse was to dismiss it as nothing more than a cleverly-devised spoof, a modern satire of the Welk Show, but on further review, I'm afraid that it's all true. Watch it and see.

And be sure to catch Lawrence "Ah-one-anna-two" Welk himself at the end thanking Gale and Dale for their rendition of "a modern spiritual"...

Barack Obama the Anti-Christ? Or is it McCain?

There's a viral email going around that inflammatorily accuses Barack Obama of being, among other things, the Anti-Christ!

Here's the part that's pertinent:

What do you think of this?
**The Book of Revelations**
This will make you re-think : A Trivia question in Sunday School : How long is the beast allowed to have authority in Revelations ? Guess the Answer? Revelations Chapter 13 tells us it is 42 months, and you know what that is. Almost a four-year term to a Presidency. All I can say is Lord Have Mercy on us.!
According to The Book of Revelations the anti-Christ is:
The anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40's, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything ..
Each opportunity that you have to send it to a friend or media outlet...do it! I refuse to take a chance on this unknown candidate who came out of nowhere.

I don't know what Biblical scholar dreamed this one up, but it's probably a knuckledragging graduate of Pat Robertson's Regent University.

First of all, it's The Book of Revelation, not "REVELATIONS".

Second, since the book itself was written circa 200 CE, a full 400+ years before the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, it could hardly mention "Muslim" since the religion of Islam would not come into existence for another four centuries.

Third... Well, I don't need to into the long explanation here. Over at Snopes they have an extensive entry on this. Check it out for yourself and see what the truth really is, and when -- not if -- you receive this email, fight back. Inform the sender and, if you're lucky, all the other recipients of the email that Barack Obama is NOT the Anti-Christ.

In fact, if you use the diminutive for John, you can make an equally believable case that McCain is the Anti-Christ: The number of the beast is 666. Johnny (six letters) Sidney (six letters) McCain (six letters) = 666!

Those Nasty Bastards at ACORN

Jeez, from listening to the "news" (aka the wingnut talking points being spread like fresh manure by the CPM*) this week, you'd think that ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) was a cross between the old Communist Party USA and Al Qaeda, with a smattering of KKK-Nazis thrown in for seasoning.

So if the wingnuttery wants to keep talking about what a grave threat to America that ACORN really is, then I'm sure they wouldn't have any problem at all condemning (eschewing, denouncing, execrating, etc etc) an American politician who actually stood up before an ACORN-sponsored event and not only did he give a speech, no! He was the keynote speaker!

Yep, it's true. Somebody better tell Caribou Barbie about it so she can start excoriating his participation in such an obviously anti-American event.

Only one problem: It was 2006, and that keynote speaker? Grampaw McSame.

It was at a rally in Miami way back in Febuary 2006, and the topic was comprehensive immigration reform.

Jeez, what a difference just a couple of short years can make.

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength¹.

* Capitalist Pig Media, formerly known as the MSM/SCLM

The Pathology of Palin Supporters

This is a fairly long video at almost 15 minutes, but it's well worth watching. Kudos to the filmmakers, David Swanson and Shepherd Johnson, who had the testicular fortitude to go to the Oct 13 Palin rally in Richmond and shoot this video.

I especially like the WMDs-are-in-Syria guy and the god-punishes-liars-with-eternal-hell couple, but there's really only one rational voice (aside from the filmmaker's) in this whole video, and he's from ... Alaska.

But, as entertaining as it is, in a car-wreck-on-the-freeway kind of way, it's also very scary. This is the kind of thinking mentality on the right that makes me extremely nervous.

Watch it and see if you agree.

Adam Smith on Faux News

No, not that Adam Smith -- this is the Adam Smith who is a Democratic congressman from my own Washington State, more than holding his own against Fix Noise media whore and Rethug apologist/enabler Neil Cavuto.

Watch the expressions on Smith's face as Cavuto tries to hand him his lunch on his "hatred" of Baby Doc Bush and instead gets his own lunch handed back to him: