I know it sounds crazy and maybe I've had too much caffeine, but I plan on seeing Oliver Stone's "W" Friday night and I plan to enjoy it and maybe even cry.
The truth is, I have always liked him. Not President George W. Bush but the boy they call Dubya. He is quite a character, funny as hell, has the best and most endearing and hysterical gaffes of any political figure in history. How can you not love the guy?
Sure, he ruined the world (literally) but give the guy a break. He looks so lonely and sad nowadays. I don't think even Dick hangs out with him anymore.
Political Satire Blog 23/6 put together this sad tribute to the most unpopular president since Hoover:
Pundits on both sides of the political coin are trying to anticipate what swing voters thought of the debate Wednesday night. If you watched the debate on CNN, you saw the reaction meter rise and fall and may have been slightly distracted by it. My only distracting thought was: "Who the hell is STILL undecided?"
Liberal web bloggers are having a field day with Sen McCain's excessive blinking, rapid tongue flickering and condescending eye rolling. He reminded me of the alien lizards from that old 1980s sci-fi series "V" (Visitors) right before they rip off the fake human mask to reveal their lizard-like heads. Youtube is bursting with clips from the debate that highlight Sen. McCain's low points and smirks, eye rolls, scoffs and general rude behavior toward Sen. Obama during the debate. I half expected Sen. McCain to just lose it and dive on Sen. Obama with his hands around his throat. Then they would both fall backwards in the chair and tussel around on the floor like an old scrappy Navy boy who thinks he's still "got it" and an educated skinny nerd who is caught off guard and shocked. Sorry. I digress into fantasy.
Daily Ko's channel on youtube compiled a video of all Sen. McCain's crazy anger management FAIL moments during Wednesday night's debate:
A new CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation survey in Virginia released Wednesday indicates that Obama holds a 10-point lead over McCain -- 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters. Virginia hasn't given its electoral votes to a Democratic candidate in 44 years.
According to CNN's electoral map calculator, last week Illinois Senator Barack Obama was leading Arizona Senator John McCain in estimated electoral votes 264-174. 270 is needed on November 4 for the win. Picking up the 13 votes from Virginia, this puts Sen. Obama at an astonishing 277. In other words, if the election were held today, Sen. Obama would win in a landslide.
John Bon Jovi just added his name to the ever-growing list of liberal rockers who forbade the McCain/Palin campaign from using their copyrighted songs for the G.O.P. ticket soundtrack.
It would seem that the Republican Party is oblivious to the actual messages conspicuously stated in the blaring lyrics of such gritty, working class rock songs, and choose instead to focus on the chorus. For those of us old enough to remember when Ronald Reagan shamelessly flaunted Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA", we are tickled pink with nostalgia to see so many rock stars coming forward with protest against the whoring of their beloved songs by the racidal religious right and their political intentions.
Roll call of liberal-leaning rockers who have either spoken out against the use of their songs by the McCain/Palin campaign or threatened legal action:
Survivor- "Eye of the Tiger" Foo Fighters- "My Hero" Heart- "Barracuda" Van Halen- "Right Now" Jackson Browne- "Running on Empty" John Mellencamp- "Pink Houses"
Maybe the McCain/Palin Campaign should just resort to using "The Star Spangled Banner". I'm sure the decendents of Francis Scott Key would have to exhume their ancestor to show evidence of "grave spinning" so it would seem like the safe and obvious song choice.
Don't feel too bad for them. They have the full fledged support of serveral country artists including John Rich who penned the "hit" song "Raisin' McCain". *snicker*
At the risk of sounding "sexist" I find myself completely annoyed and disturbed every time I see Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin dragging around poor Trig.
Did Sen. McCain consider at ALL the complicated life of a mother of five children (who also happens to be a Governor)-one of them a newborn infant with special needs? His obvious flawed (if existent) vetting process leaves much to be desired if this is any indication of his leadership style. He is beginning to strike potential swing voters as someone with a "fly by the seat of my pants" life philosophy that doesn't sit well with some moderates or any other political affiliation for that matter. Sen. McCain took the gamble of his life when he paraded around the Palins. He sought the end to justify the means.
Wednesday afternoon in Dover, New Hampshire at the Dover High School, Gov. Palin momentarily addressed the crowd, holding her seven month old infant who doctors diagnosed with Down Syndrome in April 2008. Does she REALLY have to parade him around to loud, obnoxious campaign rallies with full of deafening noise? What point does Gov Palin think she's proving? Is she sending the message that it's okay to drag your newborn baby around, hold him up like he's Simba the lion cub for all the jungle creatures to see and then project your voice through a microphone just inches away from this poor child's ear? I'm sorry but this is NOT okay.
In her defense, she spent 312 days out of 19 months at her home in Wasilla and not at the Governor's mansion in Juneau about 800 miles away. This is a mother who knows how to work from home. The folks up in Alaska are not always happy with this arrangement, but they deal with it because they understand that she has five kids, I suppose.
So then why does Gov. Palin hop on the Straight Talk Express and go flying about the country at the request of John McCain? Why is he so special that at his annointing, this mother of five with a seven course meal on her "plate", drops everything and hops onto planes, dragging along her husband, special needs infant and pregnant teen daughter and leaving the state of Alaska to be run by the McCain election campaign?
Gov. Palin is not doing this for Sen. McCain. She has designs on power that outweigh her duties as a parent. Her designs on power also outweigh her intellectual curiosity as she is booed in New Hampshire for referring to it as the "great northWEST". Check it out:
The American military announced today that U.S. soldiers have eliminated Abu Qaswarah, also known as Abu Sara, the second in command of Al Quaeda in Mesopotamia who directed the group’s operations in northern Iraq, the area of the country that remains the most troubled by extremist Sunni insurgents.
Insurgent Abu Qaswarah was killed on October 5 in the Mosul area in north Iraq in an operation led by American forces. Acting on intelligence, the operation was led to a building where Abu Qaswarah was staying with some associates. The extremists opened fire on the American forces and the Americans returned fire, killing five of them, the military said.
What does this have to do with the upcoming presidential election? This event could be the near equivalent of the economic nosedive America has taken in the last few weeks. This event, if correctly spun by the right-wing pundits and McCain surrogates, could threaten to strenghten the Arizona Senator's claims that he is the one best suited for president. After all, wasn't he the one who supported the war in Iraq? See, nobody ever listens to the Maverick. I prefer jumping off a bridge to seeing the smug mug of the "Pitbull bitch" and hearing her nerve grating accent slamming the I-told-ya-so down my throat, dog-gonnit.
Being a former community organizer, I am somewhat familiar with the organization known by the acronym A.C.O.R.N. (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). It is widely known in organizing circles that A.C.O.R.N. volunteers and employees flub at least one out of five voter registration forms. It is also understood that this makes no difference in the larger scheme of voting because the forms that are incorrectly filled in and the repeating names do not result in "extra" voting rights for people. No matter how many times John Smith at 123 Main Street, Anywhere, USA registers, he can only vote ONCE.
A.C.O.R.N. is not authorized to throw away registration forms they receive from their canvassers. In fact, they are strictly forbidden to discard any registration forms that they find are incorrect. They make a few attempts to contact the potential voter in question in order to correct the information and make the form valid, but if they have no success in getting the voter to correct the information, they must package the invalid forms and send them to the local election boards anyway. The election board workers are left to sort out the mess. If this seems convoluted, imagine the implications of voter fraud A.C.O.R.N. would have to face had they attempted to weed out the invalid forms and discard them. Its better to go ahead and send a bogus registration form on behalf of Captain Kangaroo to the election board and allow THEM to throw it away rather than outrage thousands of people who legitimately filled out a registration form, made a mistake and had it discarded by A.C.O.R.N. "A.C.O.R.N. threw away my vote."
The main issue with A.C.O.R.N. is that they must lower the bar of qualifications for their employees because they are a non-profit organization and usually hire canvassers at minimum wage. How hard is it for a person who can basically read, write, walk and talk to complete perfect, legible documents for the election boards? Its something that anal writer-types like me can do in my sleep, for regular non-nerdy people-not so much. A.C.O.R.N.'s bottom line is: they got what they paid for. They cant afford to hire college graduates to canvass for voter registration. It essentially is an organization mainly comprised of poor people organizing for other poor people. They still manage to get in quite a few numbers of new voters despite the ones that get discarded by the election boards. A.C.O.R.N. is STILL a legitimate organization that does great things for the community.
All this boils down to is another character attack on the Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama who, through political party association has been linked with A.C.O.R.N. This declaration made by the right-wing media is erroneous. The voter registration branch of A.C.O.R.N. is a non-partisan organization that doesn't endorse candidates or political parties. Their main focus and goal is voter registration regardless of political affiliation or candidate preference.
If last week's pulsing headlines about "hate seed sowing" and "race and race" weren't enough to convince me that Sen. McCain is drawing a sinister image of Sen. Obama based on America's tradition of home grown bigotry, today, I stand corrected.
The Governator got involved condemning the material on the website "innaprropriate" and Hector Barajas, a California Republican Party spokesman, said Democrats have been playing the race card, but that the local party went too far in this instance.
Taking credit for the site www.sacramentorepublicans.org is county party chairman Craig MacGlashan. Upon being interviewed by the local press weeks ago about the reported vandalism in which "KKK" "N****r" and "white power" were spay painted over six out of nine of Sen. Obama's campaign billboards (clearly visible from the highway), MacGlashan expressed disapproval: "What you are describing to me is not free speech, it's vandalism. We don't condone it,"MacGlashan said. When asked about the offensive content on the official local Republican party website, he seemed unconcerned: "I'm aware of the content," he said. "Some people find it offensive, others do not. I cannot comment on how people interpret things." He said he would "consider people's complaints" before acting on removal of content.
Bob Shieffer of CBS fame has a daunting task ahead of him tonight-how to keep "That One" and "Maverick Man" honest. So far, in two previous debates both presidential candidates have managed to duck the red-hot burning questions. Mr. Shieffer's got his work cut out for him. The third and final presidential debate of 2008 will be held on Wednesday, October 15, and will take place at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, just 25 miles east of Manhattan. Tonight's topics: The economy and domestic policy.
It is estimated that 52 million viewers tuned in to watch the first debate on September 26, 2008 at the University of Mississippi, 62 million watched the second debate from Nashville, Tennessee on October 7. Neither of the first two presidential debates would trump the turnout for the Vice Presidential debate on October 2 in St. Louis, Missouri which was estimated at 73 million viewers. My prediction at the beginning of this race was that it would be the best entertainment America has seen since the first three seasons of American Idol. Just call me "Nostradamus". Tonight's viewer turnout is expected to exceed the first two debates according to a few news feeds.
Other issues are on the table, such as economy and domestic policy, but the Jerry Springer fan in me really wants to see Sen. McCain say it to Sen. Obama's face. That's really the most important issue for me-especially since Sen. McCain has been quoted lately that he will "whip Obama's you-know-what" in tonight's debate.
Just another Tuesday afternoon in Scranton, Pa. today with the exception of the thousands of voters that crammed into The Riverfront Sports Complex. Just another stop on the "Straight Talk Express" for Republican V.P. candidate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin who is currently hitting the trails without her running mate Arizona Senator John McCain, who is preparing for the upcoming third and final debate Wednesday night. Just another opportunity for rabid fans of the "Pitbull in lipstick" to "rear their [hateful] heads".
During Republican congressional candidate Chris Hackett's opening remarks, a morbidly enthusiastic (assumingly) supporter of the G.O.P. ticket in the audience shouted: "Kill him!"
If you haven't been following this late developing, salacious bit of political outrage fodder, the McCain campaign, faced with a sudden drop in prospective election polls, announced last week that they would attack the character of Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, in an attempt to close the widening losing gap for the G.O.P. ticket. For the next several days on the campaign trail, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin raised the question; "Who is Barack Obama...really?" Gov. Palin and Sen McCain were quoted several times on the stump inquiring about Sen. Obama's relationship with William Ayers; a former member of a 1960s radical leftist group. Twice last week, McCain surrogates referred to Sen. Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama" in front of booing, hostile crowds.
If the heat the McCain ticket was taking from the press and others had any effect on the Republican candidates and their campaign strategy, it certainly had no effect on the base of the G.O.P. voters. They seem to be content with the world viewing them as a lynch mob.
Youtube vloggers "The Young Turks" draw an interesting parallel between Arizona Senator John McCain and The Penguin from old classic episode of the Batman T.V. show. In this episode, Batman and The Penguin are having a politcal debate with a moderator placed between them. "My friends", the similarities bewteen the two are hilarious and morbidly uncanny. Check it out:
Republican ticket hopefuls Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin may go down in history as the blackest pots to ever call a kettle black.
After causing a shitstorm of backfiring press last week by aiming the McCain/Palin campaign focus toward raising questions about Sen. Obama's so-called "terrorist associations", the Maverick Man has sucumbed to "glass house syndrome" at long last.
What kind of vetting process does John McCain have? I'm picturing a guy with a Rolodex at an oak desk in 1962 with slick hair that makes a few calls, goes on a few golf outings and gets his nod of approval in a country club steam room full of delusional, overweight, rich "conservatives". Funny how "conservative" is supposed to mean "frugality". Ironically, huge bellies, heart disease, and fat wallets tell a different tale.
Sen. John McCain talks a good game and sounds all "marvericky", but the facade is crashing down in huge blocks of FAIL. He has managed to surround himself with people who have more skeletons in their closet than that deranged cannibal family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If his first sloppy move to select a Troopergate-y V.P. wasn't evidence enough of his questionable mindset, he hires a man who has actually "palled around with terrorists" to aid him in his transistion into the White House should he win the presidential election. He hires a man who performed as a middle man between the United States and Iraq (namely Sadaam Hussein's regime) and attempted to influence the United Nations to lift sanctions off Iraq to allow for a scheme called the "food for oil" program, to which this man and two other known liasons of the Iraqi government were to recieve major kickbacks in the double digit millions. THIS is the man Sen. John "Maverick" McCain hires to advise him. A well seasoned and connected Washington insider named William Timmons and the very antithesis of a campaign that promises "Mavericky-ness" from a couple of Washington "outsiders."
In the face of a fluctuating stock market, suicides at an all-time high and bank accounts at an all-time low, a good laugh is welcome. Check out David Allen Grier doing his best anti-Colbert:
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