Saturday, September 20, 2008

Finally, a great anti-McCain ad



(thanks, Kitten!)

Friday, September 19, 2008

Conservatives scare more easily than liberals?

I guess we all kind of already knew that. While red-staters in backwoods Nebraska were cowering behind their statues of butter and giant rubberband balls thousands of miles away from anywhere close to actual ideal terrorist targets, those of us liberals in the urban centers ripe for terrorist targeting have been trying to get the cowards to pull their frightened heads out of their asses.

At least now we have science to back that up.

Economic Meltdown Primer

Many folks are slowly, drearily, waking up to see that John McCain is not an honorable man. I don't believe that he ever was. He was a smartass little brat when he was a kid, and grew into a petulant jerk by the time he went to Annapolis. His first dose of humility came after his fifth plane crash - this one being due to a SAM hitting his plane - which resulted in his being captured by the NVA and spending a few years in the Hanoi Hilton. That was a terrible thing for him, and one would hope that this lesson would have been painful enough to keep him from doing immoral things, like say, cheating on his handicapped wife with a rich heiress, or allowing himself to be corrupted by the likes of Phil Gramm or Charles Keating. Which brings us to the point of our current economic crisis.

Our current situation can be mostly blamed on people like former Senator Phil Gramm, and John McCain himself, who - like with his involvement with Charles Keating and the S&L scandal of the '80s - just doesn't know how to say no to dirty money.

John McCain is an immoral man. He can't help it. It's in his DNA.

For a primer on the current crisis, and how it directly relates to the S&L scandal of the '80s, and John McCain's involvement in both, check out Jim Moore's excellent post at HuffPo.

Propaganda and the American Police State

Mike Wallace gets an Emmy for a propaganda piece created to stir anxiety against Iran? Mike Wallace is scum.



Read more here.

American Police State

How long before we have Death Squads?

Animal Farm Friday - Something Intelligent

Taking a break from the overwhelming idiocy of the McCain campaign, today we feature some creatures with actual intelligence at play. Enjoy!

Palin the Energy Expert

First, this [brilliant] quote from the Hockey Mom:

"Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know,
the molecules, where it's going and where it's not. But in the sense of
the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic
markets that need that oil first. So, I believe that what Congress is
going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree
that it's Americans who get stuck holding the bag without the energy
source that is produced here, pumped here. It's got to flow into our
domestic markets first."

And then a not-so-subtle takedown from Hilzoy:

Call me cynical, though: I don't think Sarah Palin had any idea what
she was talking about, any more than I think John McCain had any idea
what he was talking about when he said she "knows more about energy
than probably anyone else in the United States of America". Because if
she does, we're in much deeper trouble than I had imagined.

Seriously, folks. We are one national election away from becoming the Argentina of the late 80s.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Palin the plagiarist?

Sure, you can't trademark a thought, and to be fair, Republiscums are great at stealing ideas and taking credit for them (just a few examples: 1, 2, 3), especially in campaigns, but when you try to do it with an idea that has already been implemented, well... lets just say you have to be pretty fucking stupid. From CNN:

“We’re going to do a few new things also,” [Palin] said at a rally in
Cedar Rapids. “For instance, as Alaska’s governor, I put the
government’s checkbook online so that people can see where their
money’s going. We’ll bring that kind of transparency, that
responsibility, and accountability back. We’re going to bring that back
to D.C.”

There’s just one problem with proposing to put the federal checkbook
online – somebody’s already done it. His name is Barack Obama.


While that might have been bad enough, her campaign spokesperson said something even more stupid.

A campaign spokesperson insisted that Palin
was referring not to that specific proposal, but rather to "that kind
of transparency in general."

So, yeah. Palin is going to bring "back" the kind of accountability that already exists? If so, then I guess that means that she knows herself that she is useless.

Hey, what's the difference between Sarah Palin and pit bull? Don't insult a pit bull with that comparison. Everyone knows pit bulls are smarter.


Republicans vs Democrats on the economy

If you are a firm believer that Republicans are better stewards of the economy than Democrats, or have been at any time in the past, then you're not going to like this.

Lyin' Palin



(thanks Kitten!)

Are you worth $17,000/hour?

Good point!

I’d particularly welcome views of anybody out there who thinks C.E.O.’s
deserve the $10 million they averaged last year, or who argues that
these are real arm’s length negotiations. And anyone else as outraged
as I am that we can’t afford health care for children, or an effective
program to fight malaria, but we can afford $20 billion a year in
subsidies for C.E.O. pay packages?

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

¿Preparado en el primer día?

That's a rough translation for "Ready on day one?" It would seem that McCain doesn't pass the Commander in Chief threshold after all. Read this greatness from TPM!

So McCain is the candidate with the foreign policy experience ready to lead on day one. But he doesn't know who the leader of Spain is. He gets confused in an interview, apparently thinking Zapatero is someone from Latin America who is an enemy of the United States and manages to create a minor international incident.


No, he wasn't even thinking about the Zapatistas (from Mexico), not like that's even close to being an acceptable explanation. Ya can't blame the poor white dude, he was just lumping all Hispanics together, obviously revealing his true opinions about them, that same opinion he tries to hide when pandering for their support in Arizona. Not like he has a choice there when you consider that white folks are soon to be a minority there. Of course, given that, you'd think McDuh would have boned up a little harder on his required subjects.

Ah, internet porn


Voter registration in 50 states

Managing Expectations

I'm wondering if the McCain campaign is deliberately keeping Palin away from press conferences because they know it will do these things:

1) Make the press angry and suspicious, which will lead to 2) the press turns that anger into creating stories about how Palin is unprepared, out of her league, and is unable to handle tough questions, which 3) will set the bar really, really low for her so that when she finally does step before someone with tough questions, she will appear smarter than she's been given credit for.

That's pretty much what Bush did, always striving hard to lower the bar as low as it can go. As Bill Moyers said (also the quote in my masthead), "When the bar is low enough, you can never be too wrong."

McCain and the Ol' Boys Network

From TPM:

Speaking in Nevada today, Obama quoted McCain's vow to take on the "old boys' network" in Washington, adding, "The ol' boy network? In the McCain campaign, that's called a staff meeting."

Declining to participate

Like a true Republiscum:

“…Aides to Gov. Sarah Palin won't comply with subpoenas issued by state lawmakers investigating the firing of Alaska's former public safety commissioner, since Palin "has declined to participate" in the probe, her attorney general says.”

That sort of matches perfectly with McCain's voting record in the Senate.

Miss Teen South Carolina and how her brain works

See more of the internets best videos at CollegeHumors Web Celeb Hall of Fame.

Golden Oldie



(hat tip to Rydogg!)

The Deep Religiosity of Capitalism

That's the title of this painting by Nicola Verlato. I'd say that's just about right, and just as perverse.

Get a better job...

boss ass

...and stop crawling up your boss's ass.

Thoughts on the bailouts

The number one reason behind all of these bailouts is to keep from
happening what led to the Great Depression. As for being immoral, and
wrong on nearly every level, the simple truth is that without these
bailouts, the entire US economy would collapse very quickly. And it
still might. I've been predicting since 2006 - when most people were
still debating whether or not we were in, or heading into recession -
that we would in fact enter a depression before 2010. I'm not an
economist, but I'm also not stupid. If you look past the complex trees
of arguments against a looming depression, it's quite easy to see that
the economic forest itself has been clearcut, slashed, burned, and
completely mismanaged. Taking this metaphor to its logical conclusion,
a wildfire is about to erupt, and it will only get worse. The reason
being is that the Fed keeps adding bad paper to it's portfolio, and
because the Fed is broke, it's borrowing money to cover these debts.
How long can that work? How long before our lenders in China decide the notes they are holding aren't worth the paper they're printed on?

NOW endorses Obama and Biden

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Couldnt happen to a nicer guy

lipstick, pigs, dog collars

Hilarious send up in the New Yorker! Money quote:

Do you know the difference between me and a Hockey Mom who has forgot her lipstick?

A dog collar.

Do you know the difference between me and a dog collar smeared with lipstick?

Not a damn thing.


Monday, September 15, 2008

McOlytes Abandon Ship

Followed this from TPM (thanks Josh!)


Former McCain fanboy Richard Cohen:
McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the
election, he can -- as he did in South Carolina -- renounce who he was
and what he did and resume his old persona. It won't work. Karl Marx
got one thing right -- what he said about history repeating itself.
Once is tragedy, a second time is farce. John McCain is both.


Holy shit.

Say the opposite, say the opposite

Up is really down
Left is really right
Night is really day
Dark is really light
Really, nearly right

There is simply no other way to look at Conservative/Republican politics anymore than as exactly "through the looking glass." For a party and group to have as a solid core of their foundation a bias against drugs, I am really wondering what the hell it is that they have either been smoking, snorting, injecting, or swallowing, 'cuz man, that must be some good shit!

We saw this all along with George W. Bush and his administration. The biggest examples are what we saw from Iraq, to Katrina, to the economy.

When King W stood on the deck of that carrier in front of the banner declaring "Mission Accomplished", that must have been the first of the biggest clues that the "mission" (not that he had any real mission in place) was barely even begun. When Li'l Bush said "heckuva job, Brownie!" we should have known (though we did suspect) he meant, "Wow, Brownie. You really fucked this up, but there's no way I'll admit that, since I'm the jackass that gave you this job." When Georgie proclaimed back in his State of the Union that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," that was the wake-up call to everyone listening that we were indeed in deep shit.

Fast forward a few years, and now we have a presidential candidate formerly known as John "The Maverick" McCain echoing the very same words as Georgie back when, saying "the fundamentals of our economy is strong," which we can only take at face value to mean that we are more fucked now than ever.

But take a couple more steps back for some more "Up is Down" examples. "The Presidential Candidate Formerly Known as John McCain" heretofore referred to as McSame (or McStain, McLiar, McPOW, McFake, McCan't, McMalleable, Mc?), has been promising to bring "Change" to Washington, never mind the fact that he has been in Washington 26 years and the only thing he has changed since then was his once centrist position to that of a full-fledged right-wingnut. He changed wives through an adulterous affair when he started fucking Cindy behind the back of his wheelchair-bound wife, but that was before he became Somebody.

McStain's first notable achievement in office as a Congressman was to sell himself out to some low-rent financialist thugs, embroiling himself into a scandal with this group known as The Keating Five. While he used some of his endless supply of POW clout to keep his ass out of jail - and from getting any sort of real admonition, the bottom line is that the first opportunity McStain had to do something right, he chose to do something wrong. Well, I guess that was the second chance he had to do the right thing. The first being to have not ditched his first handicapped wife for the totally rich prom queen.

During the time between when he sold out to the S&L thugs and the 2000 presidential campaign, Mc? exerted most of his efforts trying to re-brand himself by creating an image of himself as a Maverick willing to challenge his own party. It's the only thing a naturally corrupt politician can do, and that is also what makes him a perfect Republican. By pretending to be a Maverick, always trying to do the right thing, when in fact he is just another power-hungry, amoral, corrupt politician for sale to the highest bidder, he is fitting squarely into the "Up is Down" mold that is the purest definition of the Conservative/Republican idea. He exclaims "I am a Maverick telling you that I am fighting against everything I am actually guilty of doing!"

Up is Down.

Now, here, today, we have as Mc?'s chief economics adviser none other than the very person scum sucking sleazebag most intellectually sound people believing was the one person most responsible for our current economic crises - if there can be only one - because of his spearheading the deregulation of financial markets as head of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and the same fucker that made the Enron scam possible. As if that's not enough, another one of Mc?'s top economics advisers is none other that a tool that goes by the name John Thain, the CEO of Merrill Lynch, once a powerhouse in the financial sector but had recently sold itself for chump change to Bank of America. With all that foundation, McFuck-You-America says he's going to bring about change to Wall Street.

Left is Right.

But wait. There's more. One of the latest lines of attack from McWarHero is that he will take on the lobbyists that control Washington. He says this as the very individuals that run his campaign are some of the biggest lobbyists in the business. Charlie Black (lobbied for nearly everything evil), Rick Davis (lobbied for the nation of Georgia), former Senator Phil Gramm (lobbied for UBS), and has other lobbyists working for his campaign that were super cozy with convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. So with that, McLiar says he's "going to take on the Washington lobbyists!" I guess there can be some truth to that if by "taking on" he means "hiring".

Mc? has been borrowing a line from King George, about the fundamentals of the economy being strong. He's used this one a lot, and used it again today, on the same day that Wall Street plummeted harder than it had since 9/11. After being called out on it, Mc? tried to claim that the "fundamentals" he was referring to were actual workers. But probably not the same workers whose salaries he's worked feverishly to keep down, and whose unions he's been complicit with busting, the same workers who he pretends to stand for during election cycles, but votes against at every opportunity placed before him (that is, when he actually does his job and votes).

Night is Day.

Mc? also supported King George in firing up the Iraq War, then pretended he was against the president because he had a different kind of war on, only to later take credit for championing the "Surge" after he had barely supported it out of fear it would fail, and only came out as its champion when it looked like it was sort of working.

Dark is Light.

Seriously, when everything you do is exactly the opposite of what you say you stand for, then all we can do is take you at [the opposite of] your word. So when Conservatives/Republicans rail against drugs, we can only accept as fact that they are actually in-taking the best fucking drugs anyone can imagine.

Right?

Photographer Run Amok Won't Be Paid By The Atlantic


This was a brilliant, if not under-handed move, by this photographer. Not only did she manage to sucker McCain into being photographed in a perfectly - and accurately - representative light, she also suckered those self-congratulatory idiots at The Atlantic. Kudos to her, and screw that dishonest and dishonorable scumbag McCain. Double-screw The Atlantic. It's about time they took one on the chin.
About John McCain
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Not all Alaskan women are crazy



And not all of them like Sarah what's her face.

Wish you were here

Ike, in pictures

Street Art

Clever.

Pedestrian Street Art by Peter Gibson 16

More here
.

Where are the Clintons?

Just asking.

McLiar is in big trouble!

When this is the best McLiar can do Jacksonville, of all places that should be rock-solid McLiar country - he's in big trouble. Fuck those fictional poll numbers the pollsters pull out of their asses to create the artificial sense that this race is close. Unlike pollsters and McLiar, pictures don't lie!



Tom Toles rocks!

Obama ad. It's about time!

Not necessarily creative, but it is clever in how a solid and strong narrative was put together using direct quotes from major sources. If this ad succeeds, it should force the CRM (Corporate-Run Media) to own up to these quotations of theirs, and will have provide some honest - not "balanced" - coverage for once.

Open Season on journalists in the Corporate-Run Media

It's time to go huntin'!

While not normally an advocate of direct violence, I say now that it should be completely acceptable to punch in the face just about any journalist working for the Corporate-Run Media at every opportunity. The higher up the ladder - those journalists pulling in six figures, and especially the editors - deserve an extras level of punishment for their complicity, and their direct efforts to corrupt the political discourse in this country.

I would argue that the people in this country are just as much to blame, since they are the ones who willingly consume the garbage these hacks force down their throats, but the corporate-un Media created the environment that we live in. They claim they are only giving us what we want, but the truth is, through consolidation - and thanks in very large part to the deregulation that has allowed media markets to to be controlled primarily by just four major corporate entities - choice has become extremely limited. People are only choosing from what is being offered, and that is complete shit.

Josh briefly highlights two recent instances that demonstrate just how fundamentally corrupt the Corporate-Run Media has become, and offers this:

We hear a lot about the steep and perhaps terminal decline of the
business model underlying daily print newspapers. But this corruption
in the basic conception of the craft -- which is actually related to
the economic decline -- gets discussed much less.

This is what gives liars a clear strategic advantage over non-liars.
And it's an open question whether McCain's level of dishonesty turns
out to be so great that it overwhelms reporters' unwillingness to
report accurately on it.




So go after journalists with impunity. Just make sure that as you administer smackies, let them know why. Let them know that you're sick of how they've corrupted our politics, and are hurting this country.


Lets see them denigrate this guy

Go ahead McLiar, attack a fellow POW.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sunday Funny - Palin and the Bush Doctrine, and like, such as...

If this is what it means to be a Christian...

... then I'm glad I renounced Christianity a long time ago in favor of reason and science.

Wwjt

Southern evangelicals are therefore the mainstay of the torture regime
in this country
. The only point at which they even balk at torturing
people who haven't been subject to minimal due process is when they are
reminded that this could come back to hurt Americans. The idea that
torture is immoral in itself seems alien to a majority of the millions
who lined up to see Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ. Since the
South was built on torture-slavery, this is not that historically
surprising. Many ancestors of today's Christianists tortured
African-Americans routinely. But the extent of Southern evangelicals
support for violating one of the core moral absolutes of Christianity
is striking.

If this is what it means to an American...

... then fuck America! All the more reason to vacate if McPalin wins. (No way I could stand to live in a country like that!)

America: The Global Pioneer Of Torture


This is what America now is: a country with the moral values of
countries that routinely torture and abuse prisoners, like Egypt and
Iran. Even the Chinese, living in a neo-fascist market state, oppose
torture in all circumstances by 66 percent, compared to Americans where
only 53 percent do! More horrifying: a higher percentage of Americans -
13 percent - believe that torture should generally be allowed than in any other country save China, Turkey and Nigeria.