Halloween

Zona

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/28-30. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)

McCain (R) 48
Obama (D) 47

Early voters (17 percent of sample)

McCain (R) 42
Obama (D) 54

If the 2010 election for U.S. Senate were held today for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Janet Napolitano the Democrat and John McCain the Republican?

McCain (R) 45
Napolitano (D) 53

Now this poll was done by the Daily Kos, so it's probably the most antisemitic hate poll in Christendom, but it jives with other polls of Arizona, showing McMaverick struggling in his home state. By which I mean the state he carpetbagged into 30 years ago and lives sometimes when he's not in his 12 other houses. But here we are, further chance of a gruesome suicide on the Straight Talk Exress capping Tuesday night or perhaps McCain just slowly toddles into the desert, pointy party hat slightly askew, weeping....never to be seen again.

State o' the race

Barack "Malcolm X Jr." Obama: 349.3 black nationalist points

St. John McPlumber: 188.7 real America freedom dollars

Bush to America: "Fuck you for not loving me"

A Last Push To Deregulate

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January. The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining. Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis.

I'm really going to miss the little shit when he's gone. Massive Republican de-regulation fails horrifically and makes the lives of citizens worse in almost every case, but still they follow though with more because of some overarching evil scheme I'm just not seeing and connecting the dots on. Less restrictions on coal slurry in water? More strip mining? Less restrictions of fisheries and catch limits? Weakening reporting advance info on shipping containers in ports? Less pollution standards for the energy industry? Boy, these sound really beneficial to America.

None of these are popular among the populace and most of these are dramatically unpopular within each agency being forced to enact them and are unpopular in Congress. But they aren't unpopular to GOP donors and the Bush Administration. Fuck, they're so unpopular right now it would take actual murder to drop their ratings, so why not fuck over the citizens of this country with more pollution and less industry regulation. Just add it to the list of things Barack Obama has to un-fuck. That is if Cheney isn't going through the White House wiring up Semtex and C4 charges so the first few months of an Obama administration will be President Obama sitting or leaning on something and the resulting lengthy bomb squad intervention and disarming of the pressure sensitive charge. That's how you stop change, by wasting it's time with bomb disarming.

Yes on Prop R

On Tuesday, Californians will go to vote for President as well as Prop 8, which will allow or ban gay marriage. In San Francisco voters will have another choice: whether to name the sewage treatment plant after George W Bush. Prop R. Cali, on a day where you can elect the first black President and vote to allow basic rights to gays, you can also make a city wide doody joke at the expense of our boy emperor. I think you all know what to do. Yes on R. Someone find me a flag to salute.

Joe the Plumber's got two tickets to paradise

Joe The Plumber Hires Eddie Money's Publicity Team, Eyes Book

Like all good celebrities, Joe the Plumber has hired a publicity team.

The Press Office in Nashville, where clients include rockers Grand Funk Railroad and Eddie Money, will help him handle the flood of interview and appearance requests that have poured in since he was mentioned during a presidential debate and quickly became a household name.

Dear God, this will never end. Now we've gotten to the point where halfwits who make dumb, uneducated proclamations about things they clearly don't understand, after being forced into the national spotlight by the flagging campaign of an erratic old man, are becoming famous for it. But enough about Sarah Palin. It's nice to know that despite his constant proclamations that he wishes this were over, that he's a flash in the pan, and how he doesn't want to be followed by the media, he sure is going to a hell of a lot of trouble to clamp an iron grip on the spotlight and hold on for dear life, lest it no longer shine on his non-plumbing ass.

I wish him luck as long as I never have to hear about him on real TV again. The William Hung of politics can go on all the Hannity and Limbaugh shows he wants, just don't taint my eyes or ears out here in the safe zone. I will not by tickets for the Eddie Money/Wurzelbacher Plumbfest 09 nor will I buy "Hey America, buy this book so I can get into that upper tax bracket, so that socialist Israel killer can bankrupt me with his communist progressive taxes" his magnum opus novel which I'm sure will be the War & Peace of novelty, flash in the pan celebrity books. Just go away. Recede back into the right wing ether.

Palin breaks Eagleburger's brain

Well it's happened. After months of sitting in a chair, tensing up, gripping the handholds harder and harder as you saw each new Palin interview, story, and speech, finally just cracking, snapping the handholds with the force of their grip, a look of horror and fear crossing their face as they yelled "Fucking hell, this lady is crazy!" before taking to the streets clad in a bedsheet, preaching the Gospel. The man that cracked in public, before the McCain camp could ship him off to a rest facility in Sedona for "exhaustion", was former Secretary of State Lawrence "Law Dog" Eagleburger.

"And I devoutly hope that [she] would never be tested," he added for good measure -- referring both to Palin's policy dexterity and the idea of McCain not making it through his time in office.

The remarks took place during an interview on National Public Radio that was, ironically, billed as "making the case" for a McCain presidency. Asked by the host whether Palin could step in during a time of crisis, Eagleburger reverted to sarcasm before leveling the harsh blow.

"It is a very good question," he said, pausing a few seconds, then adding with a chuckle: "I'm being facetious here. Look, of course not."

After his mind revolted, he was able to tamp down the mental secession and bring things back under the cruel despotic rule of the McCrown. Adding that lots of VP's weren't ready and that given time she would be........adequate, his thought peasants storming the McBastille once again. He finally closed the interview with his sincere, devout hope that she would never ever ever be tested, his brain proles solidly in the throes of beheading the McBourgeoisie. I'm guessing he won't be doing any interviews on behalf of McCain this weekend.

We're seeing the early stages of, along with the reports of her as a "diva", "bog monster", and"unscripted ignoramus", the long knives coming out for Bible Spice. It seems the McCain staffers don't much care for her of what she "added" to the ticket (can the subtraction of Independent voters be an addition?) and are regretting McCain's drunken dart throw landing on her after Lindsay Graham intimated McCain didn't have the stones to pick some random Republican to be his VP. Boy, those post-campaign books are going to be interesting.

Zombie master

This bailout was such a great idea

Banks to Continue Paying Dividends

U.S. banks getting more than $163 billion from the Treasury Department for new lending are on pace to pay more than half of that sum to their shareholders, with government permission, over the next three years.

The government said it was giving banks more money so they could make more loans. Dollars paid to shareholders don't serve that purpose, but Treasury officials say that suspending quarterly dividend payments would have deterred banks from participating in the voluntary program.

Critics, including economists and members of Congress, question why banks should get government money if they already have enough money to pay dividends -- or conversely, why banks that need government money are still spending so much on dividends.

That's right, 52% of the bailout is going to pay out dividends to stock holders. Sorry, that should have had an exclamation point or two at the end of it. That's why this is a crisis right? Because dividends aren't being payed out, right? Not credit markets or housing markets failing, dividend payments for companies in dire financial straits not getting handed out. I guess if you own stock in these companies, you ought to be happy, you are getting your taxpayer bailout money back. What tremendous luck. I sure am glad we got a Goldman Sachs/Wall Street insider lording over everything, otherwise the important shit like this would get overlooked because most people's natural reaction would be to say "Fuck dividend payments." But those people are wrong for some reason. This is exactly what our money should be spent on, because...free market...something, something.

Bush bright ideas department

Bio Lab in Galveston Raises Concerns

How a laboratory where scientists plan to study viruses like Ebola and Marburg ended up on a barrier island where hurricanes regularly wreak havoc puzzles some environmentalists and community leaders.

“It’s crazy, in my mind,” said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer in Houston. “I just find an amazing willingness among the people on the Texas coast to accept risks that a lot of people in the country would not accept.”

Officials at the laboratory and at the National Institutes of Health, which along with the university is helping to pay for the $174 million building, say it can withstand any storm the Atlantic hurls at it.

Not content with super hurricanes, Bush feels we need super hurricanes that hurl horrifying, rare, organ liquefying diseases at the populace with gale force winds. We're sure he isn't a Bond villain right? Has he built any unstable nuclear reactors on fault lines or in unstable volcanoes? No? We sure? TNT factory next to a school? I'll take your word for it. So, gulf coast......uh...yeah....enjoy your next hurricane. Shit, I mean Ebolacaine. The rubble in your house will have Marburg virus on it. Rubber gloves and goggles, people.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.30

ExxonMobil Posts Biggest Quarterly US Profit In History
Hey don't worry, oil companies are still raking it in to the tune of $14.83 billion a quarter. Don't worry about that drop in oil barrel prices either, they'll cut production to drive it back up and you'll be paying $3 bucks plus in no time. Let's all hope John McCain is elected so these poor folks can get some tax relief, I mean $14.83 billion is nothing when you realize that as a percentage of total revenues it's kind of small. They need some relief.

Philadelphia finally gets another title
Congratulations to the other side of the state for finally winning something other than a poor sportsmanship award or "Most violent and inhumane fanbase" achievement. Try not to burn the place down and keep the murders to a dull roar. We'll meet in the NHL playoffs to kill your hockey dreams for yet another season and you can revert back to a state you're more familiar with: choke induced hate over a playoff loss.

GDP falls 0.3% in third quarter on dive in spending
There's the final indicator, we're in a recession and a world economic crisis. But don't worry, the stock market was up yesterday and is up so far today, so everything is alright. Unless it drops again, then panic. Until it goes up again. The stock market is the sign of whether we have angered the financial Gods or pleased them with our offers of money and virgins.

Florida midnight rally drew 35,000 to hear Clinton, Obama
You know how I know Clinton really, really wants Obama to win? He appears with him in the dead of the night in the woods of Florida so that news media can't cover the rally during the evening news. That's commitment to victory. I can't wait for him to stump for Obama in a West Virginia coal mine shaft at 4 in the morning.

Tucker Bounds: When Palin Shares The Wealth, It Isn’t Socialism — It’s ‘Unique’
Tucker Bounds doesn't know much, but he knows that collective ownership of natural resources and windfall taxes of oil companies that are then spread around to the people of Alaska in the form of tax rebates and wealth sharing isn't socialism. Rolling back George Bush's taxes on the top 1% is socialism. Rolling back tax cuts for the rich while cutting them for the middle class is wealth distribution, not redistributing oil wealth from companies to citizens. Geez, why don't people understand this clear line of reasoning?

McCain campaign tilting at windmills

Mark Salter Now 'Litigator' of What He Views as Media Wrongs Against Candidate

"I see the bias for Obama all over," he said, and let that hang there. His office TV was muted, but his crazed beeper was signaling him every minute or so. He hadn't had a cigarette for several hours and confessed to feeling a tad jumpy. "But this thing with Obama: We're naturally concerned -- especially because the media isn't, none of you guys are."
...
As the campaign has entered its final phase, Salter's role as what he calls the "litigator" of media atrocities has only increased. He often wanders to the back of the campaign plane to challenge reporters on their stories and always to reinforce the McCain narrative.

Sorry Mark, but your time would be better spent drinking. Want to know why the media reports that you have a shitty, losing campaign? It's because you have a shitty, losing campaign with no message discipline, ten different lines of attack a day, several different campaign reboots, an embarrassment of a VP going off the reservation, staffers and insiders constantly criticizing the candidate and campaign, fellow GOP'ers mourning your death, nearly insurmountable polls leads to overcome, and tactics and ethics that would make people who light fires in Reichstag's blush. Reporting this isn't bias for Obama, it's simple fact and I'm sorry the truth has a liberal bias.

Want to know why no one cares about all the shit you hype up about Obama? Because it has nothing to do with the main problems facing America, not to mention that 90% of it is utter BS. Want to know why no one cares about the McCain narrative? Because it dwells in a fantasy world so rich, JK Rowling and George Lucas are trying to buy the rights to it. So compile your lists of transgressors and media outlets that are disinvited from the next JMac BBBQ (the extra B is for BYOB), I'm sure it'll hurt their feelings pretty badly and next time they'll actually cover the made up shit that no one cares about. For you and your tears of ultimate sadness.

Faith in McCain

McConnell Fundraising Email: Vote For Me To Fight Obama Presidency

Citing media reports that show "an Obama win [as] a real possibility," the Kentucky Republican positions himself as the one man capable of standing up to the Obama/Pelosi/Reid machine" that "will steamroll a host of new taxes and left-wing social policy across the Senate Floor."
...
Hinting at the possibility of complete Democratic control of government - again a statement predicated on an Obama win -- McConnell writes: "national liberals want this Senate seat so badly" because "they are making this race a power play for domination of the public debate. They have made no secret that they are fighting for total unfettered domination of the government and its agenda."

Ahhh Mitch, you're such a sniveling loser. You're a senator from Kentucky and the minority leader, and you are still in a close race because of a challenge from a dirty liberal. Here's a hint, it's because of the time your party had unfettered domination of the government, you fucked things up so badly that people in Kentucky would consider voting for a Democrat. They aren't crazy about you and they don't like what you did, and they don't like your obstructionism over the last two years (two years filibuster record in one year? bravo). People want things done, immediately, and pledging to gum up the works with your childish bullshit probably isn't going to inspire hope of people who want things done.

Good news, you are a white guy and a Republican, and in Kentucky those things can take you far. Continue to call your opponent a pederast, promise everyone in Kentucky a solid gold cask of bourbon, and keep promising to halt all government to stop the dirty liberals from enacting the agenda people are voting for. I guess its better than having an actual plan or saying you'll enact Republican policies. Still, within the margin of error with Democratic turnout expected to be high. Start drinking, you might have to get a real job.

I care not for your sanity

iMcCain

The un-official John McCain iPhone app.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.29

Presidential race in Arizona a toss-up
According to a poll conducted by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University and Eight/KAET "Action NEWS!", Sweet Johnny Mac is only two points up in Arizona and the race there is "too close to call". If you thought you were going to be able to revel in a McCain concession speech, put that on hold. You might just get a depressing night long memorial to the Senator after it's found out he hung himself with his belt in the closet of the Straight Talk Express after the Arizona returns came in.

Top McCain Aides: 'Palin Simply Knew Nothing About National And International Issues'
The McCain camp is beginning to asses the shame and shambles the Palin pick left the campaign in. They seem to think that she only ever left them with the choice of making her look like a "scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus." Well gee, this seems like the sort of thing, along with the utter lack of or interest in gaining foreign policy knowledge, would have been tremendous red flags during the vetting process. Oh....right....the "not thinking things through or actually vetting her" thing. I'm sorry I brought it up.

Syria Closes U.S. School, Cultural Center Over Raid
In case you didn't hear, we're bombing and raiding Syria and wrecking their shit Cheney-style now. Oh, you forgot about Bushie? He's going to get his third Middle Eastern war if it kills him. Well, not him, just random, indiscriminate Arabs and soldiers. Syria has responded to these raids by....closing a US school and cultural center in Damascus. Ooooh, culture burn, but you do realize this is the Bush Administration here. A school closing is a net plus of these raids, you're going to have to close down a Damascus monster truck rally for them to feel it.

Early Voting Avalanche
Early voting, or "cheating" as some Republicans call it, has been posting record numbers as citizens decide to brave inordinately long lines, waits, and robot abacuses that miscount their votes before the 4th instead of on the 4th. Most states are reporting 2008 EV levels at either at or near 2004 levels earlier this week with some states, like Louisiana, North Carolina and Georgia, reporting almost double the amount of early voters as 2004. Early voting, which is traditionally dominated by Republicans, is of course being dominated by Democrats this go around. Leading the way are African-Americans who are early voting in record numbers. Hmmm, I can't think of a reason why they'd be voting in such large numbers.

Obama's sitcom to debut tonight

So tonight is the night where Obama, Biden, and David Axelrod finally unveil the sitcom pilot they've been working on for months to the American public. It's sort of Sanford & Son meets the West Wing. Joe Biden plays the crotchety old White House landlord.

He's decided to spend an estimated $3 million to put this little program on CBS, NBC, MSNBC, BET, TVOne, Univision and Fox, causing Fox to cancel it's own World Series pre-game. ABC decided not to accept money to show the infomercial, because there's some shows you just don't move for a bundle of cash from the next President and Eli Stone is one of those shows. As for the rest of the program, after Obama meets the wacky next door neighbors of the White House there will be

...strings, flags, presidential imagery and some Americana filmed by Davis Guggenheim. Obama at the top of the half hour program and at the bottom of the show talking about his agenda. However the rest of the time you might see other people, like a Warren Buffett or a Colin Powell, and other people the Obama campaign calls "validators" to give testimony on why Americans should vote for Obama.

Analysts are unsure if this move will have any real effect, or if Obama just should have taken $3 million, piled it up and set it on fire while John McCain was forced to watch. Both have the same desired result: a money themed "fuck you" to a destitute McCain campaign.

The Republicans have just about given up

The election seems largely academic at this point (jinx jinx). Republicans are openly deriding McCain. The VP also rans decided to take their shots yesterday with Mitt Romney musing about "the very real possibility of an Obama presidency." and Tim Pawlenty giving McCain all the hope of a dead dog in Minnesota saying Obama "has a pretty good advantage in Minnesota right now." They're still both in disbelief that Palin was chosen over them, it's caused some real soul searching. Both of them thinking "I can't actually be worse than her...can I?" Don't worry guys, you aren't, but you are horrible in your own ways. People within the party are also reacting poorly to VP also ran Charlie Crist keeping early voting open in Florida each day for 12 hours instead of 8, thinking it'll kill McCain's chances there. That's nice, at least they're admitting that full, open, legal voting and increased poll access is intensely damaging to Republican prospects.

Party hacks are openly conceiving of re-branding and rebuilding the party after McCain loses in secret meetings that "accidentally" get leaked to the press to rub McCain's nose in shit. Some wish to actually bring back the big tent and actually work to include moderates by hewing to actual conservative principles instead of "whatever Cheney and the crazies want" as a guiding philosophy. Others just want to anoint Palin the empress of light and start killing the last remaining Republicans with a sense of shame or decency, possibly just hitting people who wear glasses on the head with big rocks and making sure the big tent incorporates views ranging from the far right all the way to 30's style fascist right to a belief system based around grunted threats and large wooden clubs. Apparently the US yearns for an administration even further to the right than this one. Good luck.

I'm sure McCain is so glad they're all out there working for him, making all these helpful statements. He's totally probably not going to kill himself after he loses.

The wisdom of Joe the Plumber

Well, it happened. The notoriety went to Joe's head and he decided he was a political expert who was fit to comment on the election. He decided to move from the sunny shores of "electoral diversion who will be half remembered as a punchline 2 years from now" to pundit, though truthfully he's more in common with the cranks who yell embarrassingly racist shit out at Palin/McCain rallies. Plumbfucius:

The Ohio plumber, who has no license and is actually named Samuel Wurzelbacher, spoke at a McCain campaign event in Columbus Monday. A McCain supporter asked if "a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel." JTP hardly batted an eye.

"I'll go ahead and agree with you on that," Wurzelbacher said.

Of course he was on Fox News when it was said and it so flustered Shepard Smith that he had to immediately issue an apology and defend Barack Obama. On Fox. On TV.

I just want to make this 100 percent perfectly clear -- Barack Obama has said and demonstrated repeatedly that Israel will always be a friend of the United States, no matter what happens once he becomes President of the United States. His words. The rest of it -- man...some things--it just gets frightening sometimes. We'll be right back.

But hey, Joe doesn't want you to take him seriously or listen to him, which is why he takes great pains to say you shouldn't listen to him or take him seriously as he's trying to get you to listen to him and take him seriously. He's even tired of all the attention and just wants to get back to his normal life, and he's willing to tell any reporter who'll come by that exact same thing. At least he's only marginally less embarrassing a surrogate than Palin. Maybe they should just hire a cute dog to be a campaign flack. It can cover its eyes with its paw when an embarrassing question is asked, it can play dead when you ask it about Obama's tax policy, and if it doesn't understand a question it can cock its head to the side in an adorable manner.

Exclusive: Future McCain Campaign Slurs Revealed

The TheseBastards Reconnaissance Squad recently infiltrated McCain campaign headquarters and emerged with highly sensitive material. Our spies have obtained the working list of outlandish accusations reserved for the race's home stretch. As you will see, several of these have already been deployed, but the majority of the list is still in play. At this crucial stage of the race, we urge vigilance.

And yes, of course, many Bothans died.

Philistine
Terrorist
Community Organizer
Opportunist
Muslim
Egotist
Media Whore
Socialist
Muslim Sleeper Agent
Non-Citizen
Back Alley Abortionist
No, seriously, Muslim Sleeper Agent
Go below the fold to see the rest.

Cacafuego
Secretly Gaius Baltar, will give Toasters the defense codes
Tranny
Cincinnati Bengals Fan
Second Gunman on the Grassy Knoll
One of the Great Old Ones, lying dormant in R'lyeh, preparing for his glorious resurrection
High Voodoo Priest, Skilled in the Black Arts
Ni…
Scourge of Carpathia, Sorrow of Moldavia
Largest printer and distributor of race cards in the contiguous United States
Rushed for 11,236 career yards before murdering Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman
Welfare Queen
Nigerian e-mail scammer
Warden of North Vietnamese prison camp

Broken News: Religions step up efforts on GOP GOTV

JACKSONVILLE—With Republican prospects in next week’s election looking bleaker with by the hour, today the National Interfaith Christian Council vowed to redouble its efforts to get out the vote on behalf of the GOP. The plan, to be unveiled in pulpits across the United States and outlying territories, calls for a new salvo of wild, baseless accusations and threats of damnation in the hopes of increasing turnout amongst voters sympathetic to the party with whom American Christianity has spent the better part of the last three decades in bed.

This new effort has been spearheaded by Reverend Derek Gallagher of the First Light 7th Day Adventist Church of the Holy Spirit Redeemer Sepulcher. "Look, we made the mistake of going all in with one party. Sure, we looked like geniuses around 2004, but well, you all know the rest. Now Republicans are on the wane and we’re screwed seven ways till Sunday if the Democrats get power. Do you think they give a damn what James Dobson thinks? That guy was selling apples on the side of the road before he decided to exploit people’s beliefs for fun and profit.”

Gallagher, clearly flustered by the political climate's potential impact on his own spiritual and, predominantly, financial well-being, explained further. "How am I suppose to get this mega church built if I don’t have Republicans in power ginning up distrust or other faiths, starting wars, and rampaging the countryside stressing the need to get right with God? You want to check the collection plate after universal health care gets passed? We've got to get people back to fearing God’s wrath if they don’t blindly vote based on abortion and fear of gays while getting them to ignore God’s position on pre-emptive war, the death penalty, and some of the more, frankly, welfare state ideals laid out in the New Testament. Who’s afraid of helping the poor? But armies of gays forcefully handing out butt pleasure to the NASCAR set? Cha-ching!”

In addition to the resurgent fear mongering, the council has secured Vatican permission to reinstate Limbo on a provisional basis, much like a religious Shamrock Shake. The popular ethereal state of the afterlife was unceremoniously dumped in 2005 over concerns that un-baptized infants were getting off too lightly. However, it has remained popular with large portions of the the NICC ever since. Thus, if you can prove you voted Republican you will be able to get one baby back into Limbo for every Republican you help elect or one free Hell-to-Limbo upgrade for any deceased ne'er-do-well relative.

Some are taking a more hardline stance on the GOTV operation, explained Father Nigel "Knuckles" Southgate of the Memphis Diocese through a thick cockney accent. “One day you’re going to church, fine as can be, next thing you know you soul’s caught fire ‘cause you voted for Neil Kinnock. It's funny like that. Sometimes, confessions accidentally get printed up and passed out to the parishioners. Sometimes, there’s piss in the communion wine, and we can’t always make sure you aren’t the one who gets it. Have a little think about it before you step into the voting booth.” Southgate then joined two friars accosting a man for turning in a collection envelope that was quote “feelin' fuckin' light, mate."

Still, certain congregations are rejecting gimmicks and 1960’s style British gangsterisms, opting for outright demands of fealty or trading the Eucharist, straight-up, for one completed absentee ballot. Others are just going for straight obfuscation and a narrowminded focus on abortion above any other thing that God ever said, did, or implied in a vague symbolic way. “The classics are the best,” said Bishop Robert J. Hermann of St. Louis. “Check this golden oldie I’m doin’ this week...”

”Judgment Day is on its way. I will either be acknowledged by Jesus or denied by Him in the presence of our heavenly Father. The question I need to ask myself is this: What kind of witness will I give to Him when I go into the voting booth this election day? If I value the good of the economy and my current lifestyle more than I do the right to life itself, then I am in trouble. The right of our children to be protected from destruction is greater than my right to a stable economy or access to decent health care. My desire to raise a family in a safe home cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion, just as my desire to end the war in Iraq cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion.”

“Guilt trip! Why mess with what works? Abortion, abortion, abortion, vamp on Hollywood gays for a little bit then - BAM - right back on dead babies. I just hope they can’t link together stopping a war with stopping the killing, torture, and suffering of millions. I’ve just gotta stress the importance of theoretical babies over real humans. I’ve just gotta dazzle them with dead babies.” He then trailed off into working on the speech in many of the classic, regional preacher accents he learned at the Coughlin/Barnum School of Shameless Religious Exploitation.

Some problems have arisen however, though not ethical or religious ones. The NICC has required each church register each successful convert to Operation Godsham so that the NICC can later compare the list to previous voting and registration records. The pressure to register new GOP converts has seen the rise in fraudulent registrations by opportunistic preachers hoping to tack enough Limbo credits into their column to get a full “Get Out of Hell Free” card that would enable them to do whatever they wanted with no eternal consequences, a privilege only typically reserved for the rich, the high ranking clergy, and the connected.

In the past days Mickey Mouse, Tony Romo, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove’s names have appeared on the lists of fake registrations and GOP conversions turned in by area churches. The latter two were known to be fakes because both Cheney and Rove would immediately burst into flames upon touching consecrated ground.

As Election Day approaches and the efforts turn more serious, all attempts to get a word from God or Jesus on this subject have been met with silence from Heaven’s press office. Sources say the Lords are engaged in a serious, winner take all dice game with Anubis and Gozer the Gozarian. If the NICC mission fails and the final nail is put in the coffin of the GOP/Christian power nexus sources say the Council does not know what will happen next. Whether they try to claim that some magical golden tablets they found have shown them a new way or they fight it out on the streets with the black churches and gay athiests for influence in the Democratic Party remains to be seen.

John Woo wants you to vote Obama

This one, taken just before the final gunfight wherein the modern-day Ronin avenges the death of his family at the hands of the international drug lords/child prostitution magnates, is the second ridiculous Obama photo published in the New York Times today.

Stealing Atrios' bit

Short answers to stupid questions:



No. No they aren't.

Maverick reformer who took on and reformed the corrupt oil companies in need of reform

At some point we'll stop kicking the McCain-Palin campaign on its way to the ground and settle for dancing on the corpse. I'm still not sure when and where this line is to be drawn, but for now let's just enjoy the following.

ST. PAUL -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin began building clout in her state's political circles in part by serving as a director of an independent political group organized by the now embattled Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens...

...Stevens had been helpful to Palin during her run for governor, swooping in with a last moment endorsement. And the two filmed a campaign commercial together to highlight Stevens's endorsement of Palin during the 2006 race.

Video can be seen HERE, courtesy of RollingStone.

Palin is the new Reagan

Republican fears of historic Obama landslide unleash civil war for the future of the party

Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin's critics as "cocktail party conservatives" who "give aid and comfort to the enemy".

He told The Sunday Telegraph: "There's going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"

He said: "Win or lose, there is a ready made conservative candidate waiting in the wings. Sarah Palin is not the new Iain Duncan Smith, she is the new Ronald Reagan."

Excuse me while I stop laughing. You think that with all the problems going on in America right now, the biggest problem for your party was that it wasn't sufficiently right wing enough? That people within the party didn't support Palin enough? She's the future? I'm struggling to remember how you guys even got elected in the first place. Didn't you used to be smart? Was it really all just Democrats being awful and stupid?

You should thank Brooks and Noonan and guys like Andrew Sullivan, they're the only ones actually looking out for the future of your party. Palin is the new Reagan? I don't have the best memory of the Reagan years, what with being born in 1981, but wasn't he actually popular and not reviled as unfit by 70% of the populace? Regardless of the truth of these perceptions, wasn't he viewed as electable and competent enough to be President by a majority of this country? Palin is most assuredly not. If you want to hitch your Radio Flyer to her, be my guest, I like seeing epic failure slowly cresting over the horizon. But before you purge all the non-believers who were concerned about winning and appealing to someone other than the comment section dregs of Free Republic and Red State, maybe you should listen to what they said beforehand and compare it to what's gonna happen on Tuesday the 4th and the resulting exit polls. It'll be enlightening.

When you pick the person to lead you out of the wilderness it's not supposed to be someone who leads you into an even bigger, deeper, lonelier wilderness.

Feeling self-conscious, insecure, exposed?

Why must the New York Times run a front page picture that makes the future first lady look like one of those falsely optimistic characters from a Denavir commercial?

Governor Sir Charles

Charles Barkley To Run For Alabama Governor in 2014

NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley said he's going to run for governor in Alabama.

"I plan on it in 2014," Barkley told CNN's Campbell Brown on Monday.

When asked if he was serious, the former Philadelphia 76er said, "I am, I can't screw up Alabama."

He added that his native state could only improve. "We are number 48 in everything and Arkansas and Mississippi aren't going anywhere," Barkley said.

Now, wary as I am about announcements to run for something in six years, I can wholeheartedly get behind this. As he said, how's he gonna make Alabama worse? Set it on fire? Garrote Nick Saban? Plus if the debates are basketball themed, say make a shot get to state a position, he's got it in the bag. The GOP can't put up someone that can out muscle The Round Mound of Rebound in the paint, unless they run Shaq, Chamberlain, or Walt Bellamy. Plus he's the only guy that ever threw a man through a plate glass window and stayed beloved. By 2014, Alabama's racial attitudes will have advanced to those of late seventies America, so he'll have a shot there too.

I think he has a shot at winning, provided Olajuwon and Drexler are on his staff and Jordan stays retired.

To the ramparts Montana GOP!

RNC Takes to the Airwaves in Montana (!)

The Republican National Committee will begin running television ads in Montana beginning on Wednesday, a sign of how heavily the playing field is tilted against the GOP with just eight days left in the presidential election.

Montana has been a Republican stronghold for years at the presidential level. President George W. Bush carried it with 59 percent in 2004 and a similar 58 percent four years earlier. It's worth noting, however, that then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton carried Montana when he ran for president in 1992 -- thanks to Ross Perot taking 26 percent of the vote.

From Chris Cillizza at the WaPo comes word that the Republicans are dumping money into Montana in an attempt to stave off a surge in Obama's numbers. I'm no statistical electoral mathematician, but if you are spending money to defend Montana and it isn't from super sentient buffalo hordes or a Canadian incursion, you probably are wasting money. Granted, you could probably buy ten trillion ads in Billings for what it costs to run one in New York City, but it's wasted money nonetheless.

Not that I'm one to tell the RNC how to spend its money, but maybe you would like to spend a couple hundred thousand on McConnell, Chambliss, and Wicker, who are the three within the margin of error that could give the Democrats a 60 seat majority. I don't know, maybe you hate guys named Saxby and really want to stick it to McConnell for giving you a dutch oven at the last GOP sleepaway camp. But from polling, it looks like any parity in Democrat/Repuplican turnout results in losses for these three and the prospects of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid starting to think they can get actual liberal agenda stuff passed, like single payer health care. Maybe you just think it's worth defending McCain in Montana so that he can cross the finish line a week from now with 100 electoral votes. The boy's ego is gonna need a boost. Keep pumping dollars into Montana, I'm sure all that time David Axelrod spends laughing about it is time he could have spent making you contest Mississippi.

AK Senate polling post-Smash

Stats savant Nate Silver takes a shot at predicting Ted Stevens' (Felon-AK) upcoming plunge in the polls courtesy of yesterday's little incident.

Let's assume that Stevens will also suffer a decline in his net approval score of 18 points. Since he's at roughly 50/50 now, that would put him in the range of 40 percent approve, 60 percent disapprove. Our regression model uses approval ratings for incumbent senators as one of its inputs, and thinks a decline of this magnitude would cost a senator about 6 points in the polls ... actually, 5.8 points. So what we're going to do is apply a 5.8 point penalty to Stevens' numbers in Alaska. Since the race was a toss-up before, this puts him about 6 points behind overall, making Mark Begich an 87 percent favorite to take his seat.

Silver is quick to call this forecast preliminary and even "conservative," but we won't really know until the polls commissioned yesterday come back in. Stay tuned and keep your eyes on Minnesota, Georgia, Mississippi, and Kentucky.

Huckabee is asking for it

Behold the new HuckPAC promotional sticker, which is really begging for trouble. At least, according to the website, giving Mike Huckabee $10 will not only get you one of these sweet-ass stickers, but will also, "annoy Barack Obama and the Democrats." Apparently, Barry and the Dems will not be concerned with celebrating any sort of rampant ass-kicking...

More Power!

Hulk? Smashed.

WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska was found guilty on Monday of violating ethics laws for failing to report gifts and services that he was given by friends.

Think Alaskans care? Last I checked, Teddy's Senate race was a toss-up...

For fucks sake...

John Paul Jones Hints At Led Zeppelin Tour Without Robert Plant

After weeks of rumor and hearsay, Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones has all but confirmed the band will soon hit the road again. Unfortunately, the reunion this time won’t include Robert Plant. As Jones said to a Manson’s Guitar Show in England last weekend, Jimmy Page, Jason Bohnam and himself are all “itching” to hit the road after reuniting in London back in December 2007. However, Plant has been occupied with his tour with Alison Krauss. So while Plant hopes to reunite with his Led Zep bandmates “in a couple of years,” Jones said Led Zeppelin will instead go on tour with another vocalist in place. “As soon as we know who it is, we’ll let you know who it is,” Jones said of the new singer.

Hey Jones, Zeppelin without Bonham is pushing it. Zeppelin without Bonham and Plant isn't Zeppelin, it's two guys fucking around onstage with two guys who aren't as good as the originals, while charging $300 bucks a ticket to watch it. If Plant doesn't want to do it, listen to him, he's the only one with any sense.

State o' the race

B. Hussein Obama (Socialist/Terrorist-IL): 351.2
Admiral John Quincy McCain (God of Integrity/Maverick-AZ): 186.8

Projections, as always, from 538.com.

Nuclear waste, blah, blah, blah

Oh that naive Barack Obama. He thinks there should be actual concerns about the storage of nuclear waste when you talk about building ten trillion new nuclear plants to finally wean us off foreign oil and to give us those irradiated super powers we always wanted. John McCain knows better: it's all just liberal bullshit.

"You know, the other night in the debate with Senator Obama, I said his eloquence is admirable, but pay attention to his words. We talk about offshore drilling and he said he would quote, consider, offshore drilling. We talked about nuclear power, well it has to be safe, environment, blah, blah, blah."
...
I have news for Senator Obama, nuclear power is safe, we ought to do it now."

At least he praised Obama's speaking ability. But he's right, there should be absolutely no concerns about nuclear waste, because it's all safe now and every community would be happy to store it or reprocess it, right?

Interviewer: What about the transportation? Would you be comfortable with nuclear waste coming through Arizona on its way, you know going through Phoenix, on its way to uh Yucca Mountain? McCain (Shaking Head): “No, I would not. No, I would not.”

Oh, so nuclear is okay and totally safe and blah, blah, blah, but you don't want the waste to be even transported through your state on the way to another state. Because it's just so safe, I mean they use it on navy warships that McCain was on and it's not like he has, like, some constant history of cancer or anything. It's safe, just keep it the fuck away from Arizona. Apparently something about Arizona roads contaminate safe nuclear waste.

I liked her better when she was winking and protecting us from Putin

So the McCain camp, or depending on who you believe: a rogue Sarah Palin, decided that instead of just letting he embarrass them in dribs and drabs they'd let her do it in big chunks. By that I mean, policy speeches. First up on the shame train: children with disabilities. Now this should have been a layup for her, she actually has a child with disabilities and should at least understand the issue on a fundamental level and everyone likes the idea of fully funding special needs programs. So of course after starting off with plans to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and improve early identification and treatment of autism (somehow despite their call for a total spending freeze), it devolved into typical stupidity about earmarks, which she said was stealing money from disabled kids.

Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.

Of course fruit fly research is integral to nearly all genetic research and that the study of fruit flies has also been used for other autism research and “revolutionized” the study of birth defects. So her big policy speech on children with disabilities and she ends up attacking and denigrating the very research that seeks to, and has, led to dramatic advances in the treatment, diagnosis, and understanding of children's disabilities. Slow golf clap everyone, she doesn't even understand basic issues that deal specifically with her own children. I'm going to miss this walking embarrassment when McCain loses, I really am. She gonna go back to Alaska and get indicted for illegally firing some janitor for wearing too much brown and we're gonna miss all her wisdom and charm. Ah well, there's always hope for her resurgence in the 2012 primaries.

Lieberman tries to back the train up

You know who the person most hoping for the Democrats to get 60 Senate seats is? Joe Lieberman. If Dems get 60+, that means he's still needed and they still have to put up with his bullshit. Anything less and they can gut him and clean him like a fish, displaying his carcass at the gates as a warning to all who enter. So he went out this weekend attempting to walk back all that criticism of Obama and all that McCain endorsing, promoting, and punditry he did. He's always liked the kid, you must have just misheard him for the entire campaign season.

Lieberman, a self-proclaimed "independent Democrat" who was chosen by McCain to make the case against Obama at the Republican National Convention in early September, said his comments have been within bounds.

"When I go out, I say, 'I have a lot of respect for Sen. Obama. He's bright. He's eloquent.'"

Yeah that's exactly what people thought when you accused Obama of undermining the troops, not supporting the troops, accused him of not putting the country first, and started asking the media to push Obama on whether or not he is a Marxist, or that big speech you gave at the RNC, "Boy that Lieberman sure is respectful." Sure, you always respected Obama, no need to take the myriad of statements you made and go and do something stupid like take them literally. No need to take your constant support of Bush, you refusal to conduct any type of oversight from your committee chairs, and sandbagging of Democrat initiatives as some sort of disloyalty. No, Joe supported everyone all along....in his heart.

Please don't boot him off his committee and shun him in the coat room! He's sorry! Though not in a way that causes him to acknowledge his actions, words, or accept any responsibility for his constant support of Republicans. He promises to be good. Though if you do get 60 and thusly need him again, these statements are revoked and he reserves the right to backstab you and strut around like his shit doesn't stink. That'll teach all of you to react negatively to his constant support of Bush and McCain.

The worm turns for the Republican party

It's not been a good couple of weeks for the Republicans. As the political outlook has changed from one of "maybe we can squeak this shit out" to "electoral Armageddon" their tactics have gone from "unready liberal who wants to raise taxes and take your guns" to "SOCIALIST! TERRORIST!" to "McCain is dead, dear God at least save me". The latest to plead for Republicans to execute McCain gruesomely and turn the money spigot on to the House and Senate is former Bush speechwriter and American Enterprise Institute fellow David Frum, who outlined his plan in the Washington Post.

1. Every available dollar that can be shifted to a senatorial campaign must be shifted to a senatorial campaign.
...
2. We need a message change that frankly acknowledges that the Democrats are probably going to win the White House -- and that warns of the dangers of one-party, left-wing government. There's a lot of poll evidence that voters prefer divided government. By some estimates, perhaps as many as 8 percent of voters consciously cast strategic votes in favor of division. These are the voters we need to be talking to now.

Ah yes, the old "if you vote against us because you despised our 8 year rule, that means another party will be elected, don't let that happen, keep voting for us" gambit. I think the only line left for Republicans is "Fuck it, I'll vote for everything the Democrats want, just elect me. Let me stay in Washington. PLEASE!" Look, if you can't even come up with a plausible reason for why people should elect you, a last ditch effort to at least get them to not elect the other guy isn't going to work, no matter how many ad dollars you shift from McCain-centric nonsense to Mitch McConnell-centric nonsense. "The party you don't despise....yet will be elected" isn't really a compelling argument. The country hates Republicans, not Democrats. In fact, you steamrolling them constantly during the last 8 years and the general view of them as as spineless doormats that always lost, has shielded them from the wrath of the American public. Enjoy the fruits of your 2000-2008 "victories."

But there we are, the first wave of calls to perform a triage on the McCain campaign and start saving some senators under the "electing Democrats will give Democrats power" banner, trying to get the voting public to conceive of some scenario where the next 4 years could be worse than the last 8. Actually I have that slogan "Republicans: We fucked it up so badly no one can fix things. Let's disconnect the phone, start a new country, and move everything five miles down the road so our creditors can't find us." Couldn't be a worse slogan than "Country First."

Pictures of the day

From the Boston Globe's Big Picture photo blog come these two photos of Saturn's moon Enceladus and our hated fiery enemy, the Sun, wielding it's horrific plasma whip.

Hedging your bets

Re-elect Joe Biden to the Senate.....juuuuuuuuuust in case Operation Ditch Delaware goes awry.

Fail of the day

Twas all a hoax

Police: Campaign Worker Admits Making Up Story

Police say they have received photos from the ATM machine and "the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction."

Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter "B" in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

A Pittsburgh police commander says a volunteer for the McCain campaign who reported being robbed and attacked near a bank ATM in Bloomfield has confessed to making up the story. Police say charges will be filed. More details to follow.

And it was all so credible, what with it's labyrinthine narrative, it's constantly changing details, lack of evidence, disbelief from police and medical examiners, backwards B's, and Drudge push. Pittsburgh, we reclaim some of our dignity back. There are no assaults going on here related to the '08 campaign. Well, the '08 Presidential campaign at least. There might be some assaults related to the '08 football campaign when the Giants come to town on Sunday, but they deserve it for idolizing Eli Manning.

Redemption is ours, we only rob people for money, not political purposes.

Join Rudy 2012

JoinRudy2012

Christ, McCain isn't even buried yet and Rudy can't wait to hop into his grave. Maybe he can get a delegate in 2012. Here's hoping that community organizer thing will have the traction Rudy needs.

High Maintenance

Turns out the highest paid McCain staffer isn't the guy who helps Rick Davis mainline his banana/vodka/Cialis shakes every morning. Nor is it, as Matthew initially believed, the guy who belt sands the lizard sheen off of McCain's face before television appearances.

[NYT]--Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?

...It was Amy Strozzi, who was identified by the Washington Post this week as Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.

I have to hand it to you, McCain campaign. You might be incompetent, desperate, and woefully out of touch with the majority of the voting public. But you got jokes. Jokes and jokes and jokes. I almost wish we had a little more time together.

Broken In Brief: Local man forgets names of vague acquaintances at social gathering

PORTLAND, ME--Local resident James Farston expressed regret today at being unable to recall the names of three people he met briefly at a party two nights ago. Farston, 31, a clerk at Scooby's Deli in south Portland, grew increasingly distraught as repeated attempts to conjure names proved futile.

"God, this is so frustrating," Farston sighed while cleaning the meat slicer after his evening shift. "I mean, I can tell you plenty about each of them. The one dude had tape on his glasses and smelled kind of like furniture polish. And the couple -- at least I think they were a couple -- didn't really hold hands or anything the entire night. That was kind of encouraging, since the chick was pretty hot and was wearing this tight t-shirt that kept riding up on her. Man it’s going to be so awkward if I run into any of them ever again. I probably won’t because I don’t even run in that circle, but what if I do? They’ll think I’m some sort of asshole."

Despite his hangover and sour mood, Farston remained slightly optimistic. "Maybe this is like one of those things where if I just stop thinking about it, it'll come to me, you know? Christ, there was that one guy with the hat. I know him from the thing. The...thing. Doesn’t anyone understand? Help me out here...the thing, with the light up stuff. He was standing right next to me when it happened! With the hat! J...somethingorother." As he continued the two patrons in line replaced the items they had intended to purchase and left the store in mild irritation.

Notes from the human potentialist movement

ABC News delves further into the naughty bits of the sex scandal surrounding Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-FL), who apparently is a raving, mean-spirited pussy hound of the highest order. Not only was he bedding multiple women for various reasons, he was making some rather interesting demands of his female staff...

The settlement was reached after Allen hired a lawyer who sent the Congressman a "demand" letter, listing specific examples of Mahoney's alleged "gross misconduct" and "stalking" including:

"a) Calling Allen late in the evenings and demanding "phone sex;"

b) Demanding that Allen answer his calls or face termination;

c) Demanding that Allen attend fundraisers and "tease c-ck" to bring in more donations from the male members of the public;

d) Demanding that Allen engage in sexual conduct with another woman for his enjoyment."

Think the secretary who drafted the letter on behalf of Allen's attorney got through without laughing? I bet he/she kept a copy. I would. Normally you have to shell out ten bucks for a trashy trade paperback if you want to read shit like this.

Be sure to listen to the tape hosted on ABC's site.

Newtie's got satirists in his sights

Newt Gingrich: Sarah Palin SNL Skits "Slander,"

"This is a kind of deliberate, vicious, dishonest, total distortion of who Governor Palin is, including, by the way, the Saturday Night Live skits, some of which I think were slander and worthy of a lawsuit," the former Speaker of the House said. "I think the America people should realize that the elite media on the left is so desperate to elect Barack Obama that the view they're giving you of Sarah Palin is fundamentally a falsehood."

When satire is outlawed.....only outlaws will have satire. Look Newt, I appreciate the pathetic depths to which you'll sink to fecklessly self-flagellate about the "elite media", which apparently means sketch comedy shows. Aside from the same level of sketch satire about every candidate gets if SNL has someone who can do the impression, what was it the media did to her? Point out the myriad of false statements? Ask questions a High School class VP should be ready for? The devastating "could you be more specific" follow up? Allow her to talk uninterrupted without breaking in to stop the madness?

But hey, Tina Fey doing a voice with a slightly augmented set of her own glasses is slander. I'm sure the lawsuit is imminent. A class action suit comprising of every political figure ever, a land shark, driving cats, and the makers of little chocolate donuts for irreparable harm done by a mostly funny sketch show over a period of decades. I'm sure this will retroactively make McCain President and restore the dignity you lost when Chris Farley made fun of you all those times back when you were relevant. I can't imagine the lawsuit you've planned for Jon Stewart.

I'm sure you'll finally work your way down to us for our vicious slander of the Holy Ghost, biscuit themed minor league franchises, Ben Bernanke, and Krang. We'll have already taken the cyanide pills, no one takes us alive! Our slander will go unpunished!

McCain ditches his election night celebration

McCain Campaign Limits Press Access For Election Night

Republican John McCain is not going to make his election night remarks in the traditional style _ at a podium standing in front of a sea of campaign workers jammed into a hotel ballroom...the Republican presidential nominee plans to address another group of supporters and a small group of reporters on the hotel lawn; his remarks will be simultaneously piped electronically to the party inside and other reporters in a media filing center, aides said.

Aides said Thursday that the arrangement was the result of space limitations and that McCain might drop by the election watch party at some other point.

A candidate skipping his own 'celebration' bash, has that ever happened before? Space limitations? Space is so limited the candidate can't get in? Sure. Look, I wouldn't want to be there either. It'll have all the excitement of a funeral. Who would want to be around that dirge, your supporters wincing harder and harder as each new state is called for Obama. The mood turns black as Montana is called for Obama. By the time the California results comes in some junior staffer runs to the middle of the floor and commits ritual seppuku while yelling "the Islamic theocracy will never take me alive!" Do you really think McCain will want to walk out to that scene to point out that he called Obama to concede at 7:30?

Frankly with recent ASU and Mason-Dixon polls putting the Arizona race within 6 points and closing the night could have an even grimmer turn. Arizona gets called for Obama and the press rushed to McCain's bus to get a reaction. All they can hear is weeping, then a flash of light and the sound of a muffled gunshot from the back of the Straight Talk Express. Ah well, I hear he'll miss a hell of a bash. Cocktail franks, shrimp cocktails, and all the Bud you can drink.

Pennsylvania Strikes Back

It seems I called the crazy partisan how-low-can-you-go shitfest a little too soon. As some of you might recall, last week an elderly couple in Western PA declared their enthusiastic support for "the nigger." Southern Ohio then quickly responded when one of its fair citizens hung a Halloween-themed Obama effigy in his front yard. Not to be outdone, someone or someones in North Carolina killed a bear and draped Obama signs on the carcass.

And that, I thought, was the end of it. Modern American political discourse at its finest. Then Pittburgh, my hometown, came out of nowhere with a burst of bored redneck insanity typically reserved for asylums and Matthew's family reunions...

[CNN] -- A Pennsylvania woman told police she was attacked at an ATM in Pittsburgh by a robber who became angry when he saw a John McCain bumper sticker on her car, a spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh Police Department said Thursday...

...She further stated the man "punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground, and he continued to punch and kick her while threatening to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter," according to a police statement.

The woman also told police her attacker "called her a lot of names and stated that 'You are going to be a Barack supporter,' at which time she states he sat on her chest, pinning both her hands down with his knees, and scratched into her face a backward letter 'B' on the right side of her face using what she believed to be a very dull knife."

That's right. We've officially progressed from hate speech to racist lawn decorations to bear killing to assault and the carving of candidate initials into flesh. But the story, much like the beat, goes on...

[Trib Live]--Police planned to administer a polygraph test to Ashley Todd, 20, because her statements about the attack conflict with evidence from the Citizens Bank ATM where she claims the incident occurred, police said

.Also:

[Salon]--Since then, though, some people -- conservative blogger Michelle Malkin among them -- have begun to question Todd's account. And the Web site TMZ.com says it has sources inside the Pittsburgh police who say "they have serious questions about the authenticity of the alleged victim who says she had her face cut by a politically-motivated attacker." The site also reports that it has been told "there are several things about the alleged attack that don't add up."

Oof. Do you know how far fetched a lie has to be for Michelle Malkin to not buy it? This is epic. We might well be looking at a scenario where a McCain volunteer ventured to a strange city, concocted a false story about a politically motivated assault, lied to the authorities, and garnered national media attention. Now, if Ms. Todd was, in fact, robbed, beaten and disfigured on account of her political beliefs, well, that certainly isn't something we can get behind. Everyone has the right to assert their political preferences, no matter how misguided.

But if she really did make it all up, we need to get her some sort of medal because, frankly, before now I just didn't believe anyone could be so desperate and shortsighted as to pull a stunt like this. You have to admit, though, that it fits somewhat snugly into the general narrative being written of the McCain-Palin campaign. And so we wait, in bemused horror, for the polygraph results.

McCain 7.0

"I haz a prezint for oooo!"

cuddliness via chris martins

The McCain Camp: "Nuh-uh, it's your fault"

Blame game: GOP forms circular firing squad

With despair rising even among many of John McCain’s own advisers, influential Republicans inside and outside his campaign are engaged in an intense round of blame-casting and rear-covering — much of it virtually conceding that an Election Day rout is likely.

A McCain interview published Thursday in The Washington Times sparked the latest and most nasty round of finger-pointing, with senior GOP hands close to President Bush and top congressional aides denouncing the candidate for what they said was an unfocused message and poorly executed campaign.

It's funny how these year long circle jerks always turn violent at the end, becoming some circular firing squad of bewildered old men, pants around their ankles, wondering what the hell just happened and knowing, deep down, that it is everyone else's fault. For those of you counting, this is the second "What the fuck just happened" McCain post-mortem where disbelieving McCain staffers talk about why they lost.....two weeks out. NYT Magazine had the first.

Both seem to have no idea why the six different McCain reboots and campaign narratives didn't seem to take hold. Why credit grubbing while doing nothing during a crisis failed to ignite the campaign. Why a campaign focused on winning the day had some many problems constructing a cogent narrative for the fall. Why a campaign that constantly contradicted itself had trouble making a case against Obama. Why a total erratic lack of discipline looked so bad during a time of crisis. But rest assured, it was totally someone else's fault and they're willing to tell you in excruciating detail 12 days out so you don't get the wrong idea and blame the wrong guy.

"Election? What's that? The important thing now is blame. It was all Rick Davis, let me give you an audio recording of him pushing for Palin and the campaign suspension. He forced us."

Only Bloomy can save us

Ever wonder how difficult it might be, in one of the country's most progressive cities, for 51 people to overturn two separate citywide voter referendums on behalf of a billionaire clinging to power?

Surprisingly easy, it turns out...

Quick and speedy and violent

Sounds like the GOP's plant on Ted Stevens' jury was sniffed out:

The foreman of the jury in Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens's corruption trial asked today that a juror be removed following "violent outbursts" with other jurors and her refusal to "follow the rules and laws" during deliberations.

While someone who implores others to follow the rule of law might not sound like a Republican mole, keep in mind that far more clever covert operations have proved successful. Remember this guy? Also, the "violent outburst" stuff makes perfect sense.

Trouble is, it didn't work:

But U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan declined. He read the note in court and summoned the panel into the courtroom for what he called "a pep talk." He told the jurors to act with civility and sent them back to deliberate in the first trial of a sitting U.S. senator in more than two decades.

Then again, we are dealing with a Reagan appointee who, two weeks ago, pistol-whipped the government's prosecution for failing to disclose a document that said the exact same thing as several documents that had already been made available to the defense. All are punished. Get back to your justicin'.

Broken News: Corporate Media Looks to, for, New Catastrophe

NEW YORK--Concerned that any measure of reassurance or hint at resolution to the world financial crisis would endanger their stranglehold on the panicked American consciousness, the five heads of major network and cable news networks convened in New York City today to discuss what impending tragedy, real or imagined, might next be harnessed to suit their financial ends.

NBC Chief Executive Officer Jeff Zucker, who convened this landmark meeting of The Five Outlets, began by asserting the severity of the situation. "These are dark times, colleagues. While we are all ostensibly competitors, cooperation is required at this juncture. We cannot allow the notion that 'everything will be all right' to settle in the minds of the American media consumer."

Leslie Moonves, Chairman of CBS, echoed this sentiment. "There aren't any hurricanes, Miley Cyrus hasn't gotten addicted to anything yet, the bloggers keep scooping us on every fucking piece of Palin intel, and this 'Joe the Plumber' shit didn't even survive the weekend."

Tensions were high in the room, as the media giants brainstormed new and interesting pseudo-events to which their primped careerist minions could completely overreact. At one point, Robert Iger, CEO of Walt-Disney, which owns ABC, broke into a sugar free Red Bull-fueled stream of consciousness idea rant. "Can't Russia invade something else? Has Putin slain any ferocious wild animals lately? Sharks kill anything? Anything stuck in a well or on fire? Anything burning stuck down a well? Any flaming wells? Sharks in wells?" When his wonderings were met with uneasy silence, Iger threw a pad of paper across the room and screamed, "You're telling me no celebrities have stolen anything important? Hit someone with a car? Touched a kid? Where’s Jeffrey Jones when you really need him?"

Once Iger had been properly sedated, the discussion continued, with CNN Chairman and CEO, Philip Kent wondering aloud if there were any more Bin Laden tapes floating around. Speaking from a dark corner of the room, the light seeming to shrink from his presence, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes calmly declared, "Osama is out-of-pocket until a week before the election," while picking his teeth with a bleached toddler rib.

As the meeting continued and the mood in the room grew darker, the executives confessed various levels of hatred for a government they held responsible for making rare sensible decisions and depriving the networks of fodder. "The Supreme Court had to go and fuck up the 'voter fraud' thing," said Moonves. "We already had Bob Scheiffer lined up for a special two-part It's ten o'clock. Do you know where your constitution is? event."

Zucker chimed back in, claiming, "How are we supposed to meet quarterly revenue goals by covering lame-ass shit like the ascendancy of the first black president in our nation's history and a potential veto-proof Democratic majority in the Senate? That only frightens arch-conservatives, many of whom can't even read."

Kent agreed, adding, "Sure, we can exaggerate and sensationalize and loop vaguely accurate coverage for 24 hours. But we can't actually make anything up; the lying has to come from those douchebag pundits we hire to offer perspective. And we actually have to pay some of those ingrates!"

Suddenly Moonves slammed his fist down on the table and shouted, “I have the best of both worlds! It hits all the bases: violence, tragedy, 24-hour coverage and it gets another Republican in the White House. We throw Trig Palin in a well and pay a black guy to kidnap the knocked up one! Just think of the coverage! It'll be like Lacy Peterson on steroids with a Baby Jessica multiplier. This would engender so much good will that the country would take a week off from paying attention to anything important and vote entirely based on sympathy, instead of the deep revulsion they've come to feel for Caribou Barbie.”

“Les, you brilliant fucking man, you’ve done it again,” said Zucker, his erection clearly visible through his crimson robe. “Brandy, opium scones, and ether-laced ball gags for everyone! Turn on CNBC! My friends, I do believe I have a tragedy boner.”

With the discussion moving on to whether making the Palin kidnapper look like Obama was too obvious, the mood in the room became one of eased tensions as the opiates took their desired effect. Only Ailes, groggily dunking a burlap sack full of kittens into the aquarium, seemed dispirited. “I still say go with the bin Laden tape. The classics are the best.” When no response came, Ailes sighed, opened his clawed hand, and watched the twitching sack drift to the bottom of the tank.

Somehow I don't think this is a winning tactic

GOP Strategist On Palin's Clothing Allowance

Republican strategist Brad Blakeman, responding to a question about how John McCain could square his opposition to wasteful spending with the RNC shelling out over $150,000 on clothes and accessories for Sarah Palin, said that the real outrage is Barack Obama "taking a 767 campaign plane to go visit Grandma. Forget about the energy that is wasted, what about the hundreds of thousands of dollars to take a private trip when this guy should be humping his bags on a commercial plane or taking a smaller plane. Taking a 767 of campaign money from people who could least afford it is more of an outrage in my opinion."

"Barack Obama is using his campaign's plane to fly to see his dying grandmother!!! Where's the outrage? What's that? No I don't have any shame at all."

I advise you to go watch the video, it's quite remarkable. A guy tries to use Obama's dying grandmother to deflect criticism over spending three average American household's income on three months worth of clothes. It's good for just the bewildered David Schuster laughing and chiding him for a "nice try", not completely sure if he heard what he just heard. Maybe this is what'll put McCain over the top, people outraged at Obama visiting his grandmother in the hospital in elitist Hawaii. Maybe people hate grandmothers and love spending jags on clothes, who knows?

It does nicely sum up the entire McCain/Republican media response campaign: Responding to a mild and embarrassing charge of hypocrisy with hamhanded charges so over the top that people can scarcely believe you said them, resulting in coverage of the gutter you wallow in and the dignity you misplaced. Pride, take pride. I'm sure this'll teach Obama not to use his plane to visit his dying grandmothers anymore. He fears the impotent wrath of Brad Blakeman.

Oh noes, teh danger!

From the new Republican robocall annoying people nationwide, the true danger of an Obama Presidency:

Hello, I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC, because Democrats are dangerously weak on crime. Barack Obama has voted against tougher penalties for street gangs, drug-related crimes, and protecting children from danger. Barack Obama and his liberal allies have a disturbing history of coddling criminals. so we can't trust their judgment to keep our families safe. This call was paid for by the Republican National Committee and McCain-Palin 2008 at 866 558-5591. Thank you, bye

They don't want to protect kids from danger. When the giant teetering boulder is about to fall on little Jimmy, Obama shrugs his shoulders. When the Republican Congressional Delegation is holding a meeting right by the National Boy Scout Jamboree, will liberals step in and say "No child diddling, ne'er-do-wells"? When the crazed wildebeest herd is stampeding towards St. Anne's School For Especially Adorable Orphans, will Obama use his special African powers to tame them? No.

He's objectively pro-child danger. Hell, he hands out knives at school rallies. Can we risk this man as President, with his hate of safety, with the ripping out of all the child proofing you did for your baby? No, he derides your Mr. Yuk stickers, places your TV's on wobbly stands, and rips your plug covers from the wall. He only coddles crooks, not kids. Take heed. There's danger abound.

Mitch McConnell has brought you a mighty pig!

Remember how John McCain wanted to focus his campaign on the relatively unimportant and "who gives a shit" issue of earmarks? How he never asked for one (BS) and how he was against all of them (BS, aid to Israel is an earmark) and that we should all be mad about science and public works being done this way to the tune of 1/100th of a percent of the budget? Mitch McConnell didn't get the message, and with polls showing the Senate Minority Leader tied, he's tacking a different message: "I am the pork king, elect me and we will all fuck on mountains of bacon. This other guy won't be able to steal money for you as efficiently as I do. All hail the pig, I bring him to you in chains! Devour!"

Senator Mitch McConnell has certainly delivered for this western Kentucky community, where an esplanade called McConnell Plaza wends along the Ohio River waterfront, which is being spruced up with government help.

At a time when home-state projects sought by lawmakers are being condemned by Senator John McCain and others, Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, boasts in a series of campaign advertisements about how he has showered federal money on towns, airports and universities in Kentucky, like the nearly $60 million he won for the face-lift for downtown Owensboro.

Contrary to McCain's thesis people like it when politicians grift shit for their community, they're only mildly annoyed when stuff goes elsewhere. That why McConnell, who has all the charisma of a thrice convicted pedophile, has been keeping things close with his plea that the money orgy stops if the Democrat gets elected. Because being a Democrat who took down the Minority Leader in a Democratic majority with a Democratic President is really going to be some sort of hindrance. But different strokes for different folks, I guess when you have nothing to run on, pointing at the Jack Daniels Expressway and yelling "I gots more where that comes from" is as good a strategy as any. But this is where we're at now, the prospect of Democratic Senator's from Kentucky. Thanks George, we couldn't have done it without you.