Plumbertastic International Relations

Yesterday, Joe the fucking Plumber was campaigning for McCain and he said that getting Obama elected would mean the end of Isreal. First of all, what the fuck is he talking about? Furthermore, when it comes to international relations, I always get my news from an unlicensed plumber because no one knows the intricacies of Middle East peace like someone who unclogs your shitter pipes.

Here's how I like the situation to play out when I call a plumber:

He arrives at the house, with a smile on his face and a toolbox in his hands. I say, "The problem's this way, Bill" (my plumber can't have the same first name as me, so made him Bill the Plumber).

We trapse to the bathroom, and he looks at me and says, "What seems to be the problem."

"Well, Bill the Plumber, here's the problem, my shitter pipes are all clogged up.

"I'll get that fixed for you in no time. While I'm fixing the fucking pipes how about I tell you all about the idiosyncracies of international policy, and the current threats to the unbelievably fragile situation in the Middle East, with a focus on current world events threatening the existence of Isreal? By the way, you shouldn't flush paper towels down, it can really clog up these shitter pipes in no time."

This is getting rifuckingdiculous.

Proving McCain's an Asshole, Episode III: Return of the Bullshit

In the 2nd presidential debate, where McCain oh so respectfully referred to a United States Senator as "that one," he discussed the need to further investigate the possible ACORN voter registration fraud in the battleground states across America. First, notice how he only gives a shit about the battleground states, and not voter registration fraud everywhere. Here's an ad about Obama's ties to ACORN:


That's a fanfuckingtastic thought, John. However, there are only allegations that ACORN did this and you, Senator, are pissing all over the principle of innocent until proven guilty, which is a core principle of the American justice system. You have implied that Senator Obama has ties to this organization, and therefore has partaken in voter registration fraud. Apparently anyone who has had ties to this organization should be investigated. Well, if they're going to investigate people for ties to ACORN, they should start with you, Senator McCain:



And if I were Obama in the debate, I would have responded to the That One comment with something to the effect of, "You know who was against the Iraq war from the beginning? Me. You know still is for it? Dickcheese," and then point to McCain in case there was any confusion. What an asshole.

Election Day Prediction

Obama's going to take Missouri. He had a rally in St. Louis today attended by an estimated 100,000 people, which would make his biggest rally in the States. Pictures of it, including an awesome shot of Obama under the Arch can be found here and a shot of the whole crowd here.

With excitement like this in St. Louis, the St. Louis/Kansas City vote for Obama will outweigh any rural Missouri vote for McCain. Should Missouri go for Obama, this would damn near hand Obama the election. It would also keep Missouri's record as the bellwether state for presidential elections- Missouri has voted for the winner in every election but one since 1900 (they voted for Adlai Stevenson the second time he ran against Eisenhower).

New Toss-up State

Great news- North Dakota is now considered a toss-up state. In the most recent polls, Obama has been up by 2 points there. That makes the 5th red state (others are Indiana, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina) that Obama has a good shot at winning, and in Virginia, he's up b 10 points in the polls. And like many of the others, North Dakota hasn't voted Democrat since LBJ's electoral ass-kicking of Barry Goldwater in 1964. Should Obama win ND, it would be only the 6th time in the last 100 yrs. that a Dem has won the state in the presidential election. They didn't even vote for FDR for his last 2 terms, and those were landslide victories (FDR got 430+ electoral votes in 1940 & '44).

Maybe John McCain should send Sarah Palin there- her pseudo-Fargo accent might go over really well. And while she's there, they could kick her over into Canada because I'm tired of hearing her talk.

Sign of the Times

We have a family friend who was over at the house the other day; I had just pulled up in the driveway when he came out of the house. He didn't say anything to me, and just went to the bed of his truck. This had confused the shit out of me at the time. He then procured a McCain/Palin sign from the bed of his truck. It was funny as hell, but I couldn't let that stay in my front yard. So I edited it to fit my house better. It's worth noting that I have shitty handwriting in the first place, and I was doing this in the dark, so that's why it's only semi-legible.

Why John McCain Chaps My Ass

For anyone that wasn't paying attention to politics at the time, in the 2000 Republican primary, John McCain was running against George Bush. Bush won the Iowa caucus, then McCain, painting himself as the maverick candidate, won the New Hampshire Primary in a huge upset. This is the campaign when McCain got a lot of his popularity, when he started the Straight Talk Express. The thought at the time was if McCain could pull off a win in the South Carolina primary, he would have all the momentum, and likely defeat Bush. Bush's campaign had its own plans to stop McCain, and started robocall pushpolling asking people in SC if they'd vote for McCain if they knew he had an illegitimate black child with a New York prostitute. The child McCain had was a child Cindy had adopted from Bangladesh.

Understandably, after this crushing blow to his presidential aspirations, McCain became someone who protested against dirty, negative campaigning and against lying robocalls. He even spoke out agains the Swiftboat campaign leveled against John Kerry in '04.

This is why many Democrats and Independents had a lot of respect for John McCain. This is part of the reason I use to respect John McCain. And it is when considering all of these events, that the recent actions of his campaign become even more shocking & appalling.

McCain's campaign has started robocalls against Obama. The Swampland article by Joe Klein on the calls can be found here. The Huffington Post's story w/ audio of the call can be found here. The call starts out saying they're calling for John McCain & the RNC before cutting to the chase, saying that you "...need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans."

First of all, there is no evidence that Obama ever worked closely with Bill Ayers, and according to everyone from Chicago that knows Obama, the relationship was extremely minimal. They served on a board together.
Furthermore, McCain himself fucking said in the debate LAST NIGHT that he "didn't care about some washed up terrorist," that he just cared about how this reflected on Obama's judgment. If he didn't care about trying to prove that Obama's a terrorist, his robocall wouldn't have detailed all of the actions done by the Weather Underground. Now I know that John McCain is not a reliable source for what John McCain and his campaign does and doesn't give a shit about, but this is absurd.

People have reported receiving these robocalls in a shitton of battleground states & red states that McCain might lose- Colorado, Florida, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The big surprises- Maine, a very blue state, and even bigger surprises- the two uber-red states of Texas & Georgia. Maine I can kind of understand, because they split up their electoral votes- 2 votes to the winner of the state overall, and 1 vote to the winner of each of Maine's 2 congressional district. McCain's hoping he can win 1 congresional district- with how far behind he is, this seems absurd to me.
But Texas and Georgia? Why the hell is he even bothering? Is there any chance he'll lose Texas or Georgia?

His calls in Minnesota are very, very likely illegal- Minnesota law requires that all robocalls be preceded by a human voice (which kind of eliminates the point of robocalls), and McCain's call was not preceded by a human voice. I couldn't find what the punishment for this offense was according to Minnesota law, but I doubt anything will happen to the McCain camp for the illegal robocalls. During the '06 midterm elections, there were enough RNC robocalls to people on the no-call list that the RNC could have been fined several millions. However, unsurprisingly, nothing happened.

I'm really disgusted by this whole turn of events. To me, this completes McCain's transformation, with this he went from Anakin to Vader, from some dude to a werewolf, from Captain America to a fucking douche bag. Considering McCain's past, and that dirty campaign tricks like this are what he has rallied against so much since the 2000 primary, this truly represents a new low for him. I'm fucking disgusted by it, and I have not even a shred of respect left for John McCain anymore. The respect I had for him has dropped faster than Rudy Giuliani's numbers in the GOP primary.

If you are disgusted enough by this to do something about it, you can contact the RNC at 202-863-8500. Maybe you can tell them what assholes they're being. Or tell them to fuck off.

And while you're at it, tell them what a fucking douche bag Tucker Bounds is.

Funniest Attack Ad I've Seen

This is an attack ad from some guy in Kansas running for Senator. It's hilarious. Who ever thought a political ad would so bluntly insinuate that the other candidate has been pissing on the constituency?



You could argue that this ad is tasteless, and it is, but it's also funny as hell.

Chronology

Yesterday, McCain was talking about the surge in Iraq, and how integral he believes it is to our success there. When phrasing the impeccable stakes that he feels are at hand, he said we can't afford to lose America's first war of the 21st century.

There's only one problem, Senator. Iraq is our SECOND war of the 21st century. How the fuck does he not know this? He's suppose to be the alleged military expert of the 2 candidates. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a clip of this online- I had originally seen it on CNN.

Personally, if I were Obama, in the next debate I would say "Do you know who STILL forgets about Afghanist?" Then, without looking at him, I'd point in McCain's direction and say "That one."

Then while he was still pondering this, I'd say "That's right, motherfucker!! I just gave you a taste of your own condescending medicine."


... Or maybe I'd just ask him for a butterscotch or a Werther's (since all old people have those) and see if he wanted to go watch Murder, She Wrote.

When the election's over...

...John McCain is going to owe the American people a gargantuan apology for wasting our fucking time with attacks and smear campaigns in the face of one of the worst economic crises in recent history. He has made a fucking mockery of himself, of the character he use to portray, and most of all anyone in this country whoever believed any of his bullshit.

I regret ever having an ounce of respect for this man. He once portrayed himself as a fucking "maverick" above all the dirt that politicians sling. Now he has run one of the dirtiest campaigns most people have ever seen. Fuck, Karl fucking Rove even called him out on what an assholish, bullshit campaign he's running.

What the hell was Sarah Palin doing in California anyways?

It's not like she's going to win the state in the election, but nonetheless se was in California today, and again, she showed what an asshole she is.



Madeline Albright had actually said there's a place in hell for women who don't HELP other women. And she was not too happy about Sarah Palin misusing her words. I really didn't need anymore reason to hate Sarah Palin more than I already do, but dammit, I found it. How despicable and shallow do you have to be to say that women should vote for you based solely on the fact that you are a woman? I love how she says that women should vote for her because she's a woman, but then offers no substantive information on why she will make women's lives better. But then again, that does seem to be what this election's GOP campaign is about- telling you that you should vote for them or you shouldn't vote for the Dems without giving you any reason (besides fear of taxes) to vote for them.

And what the hell does she mean, "Let's see how that'll be turned into whatever it's turned into tomorrow in the newspaper"? You don't have to turn it into anything, it's a fucking stupid comment made by a small and shallow person.

Debate Preview

Some people are predicting a huge Biden win in the debate tonight; some have even gone so far as to say it will be a slaughter. There are 2 reasons I don't think that will happen. First of all, the McCain campaign pushed for a very restrictive format greatly limiting how much each candidate can talk, and greatly limiting exchange between the two candidates- each question can be 2 minutes long, and each candidate response can only be 1 minute in length. Secondly, while undoubtedly Biden has a much firmer grasp on the issues (one could argue having any grasp on issues would be a firmer grasp than Palin), but it would be extremely wrong to assume that the person who "knows the most" in the debate will win. That would be way too reasonable. All too often, it seems like the candidate who knows the least is the one who wins the election (examples below).

Here's my prediction- given the format catered to her lack of knowledge, and her prepping at McCain's ranch in Arizona, I think Palin will fare well for herself. She will make maybe 1 or 2 big gaffes, if any. Mainly, she will stay on message repeating the lines that we've heard over and over from the McCain camp. Oooh, and the hypenated words they love so much can't forget those; I'm sure we'll hear a lot about the Radical Islamo-Extremists and how our country was founded on Judeo-Christian values. The only thing McCain loves more than talking about pork is using words with hyphens.

I think when all is said and done, Biden will have an edge on substance, maybe even only a slight edge because he knows the complexities of the problems Americans face very well, but a minute is scant time to discuss any of those copmlexities. This format is geared towards one-liners. I have no idea why the Obama camp agreed to it. Anyways, Biden has an edge on substance, and I'm predicting that Palin will tie Biden or have a slight edge on style. It's worth noting that my prediction is based on the public & media's perception of who "wins," because I feel in actuality Biden is a more competent debater, has an infinitely more firm grasp on the issues facing America, and is undoubtedly far more qualified than she is.

I'm predicting that after the debate, the narrative will be surprise at how "well" Palin did, because let's face it, expectations of her are so low, she would have to make an almost inconceivably huge gaffe to do as bad or worse than is expected- something to the magnitude of trying to speak about the Declaration of Independence and refer to it as "that thing that our country sent over to England to say we were tired of their malarkey... that letter thing we sent them." Or not being able to name an amendment to the Constitution- but I don't think that would even bury her completely. I mean, Bush & Cheney did get re-elected after using the Constitution as toilet paper and urinal cakes for 4 years.

After the debate, her approval numbers will improve, but not drastically, but it will likely re-energize the republican base, and they will find new things to attack Biden on. There will be some sway back to approval of her from independents but fairly minimal- I'm betting her approval goes up 2-3 points. I think the damage done from her recent interviews is not entirely reversible, but somewhat reversible. In the interviews, I don't think it was entirely her lack of knowledge that hurt her- she could have formulated answers that admitted to not knowing it, but still could have played her off well. For example, on the Supreme Court cases naming, sure it was surprising she couldn't name any Supreme Court case she disagreed w/ apart from Roe v. Wade, but I think where the real damage was done was when she tried to fucking bullshit an answer for 20 minutes. Then it not only reflected poorly on her knowledge of our country, but it reflected poorly on her character, as if she were saying, "I don't know this answer, but I'm too stubborn to admit it, and instead I'll talk in circles for 20 minutes until your head spins and you don't remember the question anymore."

Anyways, on to examples of losing on factuality/knowledge in a debate & winning the election:


Final electoral votes: Bush- 286, Kerry- 251


Final tally: Bush/Quayle- 426, Dukakis/Bentsen- 111


Final tally: Reagan- 489, Carter- 49

This last video is the best example of how Palin could win with style over substance- Carter clearly knew more about the issue discussed, detailing a national health plan, and Reagan just saying he voted for another bill covering the same thing. Then Reagan gave the speech at the end, often cited as the deciding moment in him kicking the shit out of Carter on election day. And if I'm not mistaken, Carter was still ahead in the polls going in to the debate, although it was a tight race, and Reagan went on to beat him by 440 electoral votes and 8.5 million popular votes. Talk about a free-fall.

It's kind of interesting that Carter was talking about national healthcare featuring many, if not all of the features in modern-day proposals in improving our healthcare system (esp. preventetive healthcare) almost 3 decades before it became a big issue in the race today.