Time to get off the fence BO!

So it’s not just republicans that’ll do the exact opposite of whatever it is you suggest, now it seems the entire population of a north African country have been driven to violence by your insipid legal speak.

The latest events in Egypt are depressing, women and children are being murdered by a regime propped up by your government and desperate to hold onto power. The sad truth for you (and us) is that you, Mr. President, are better placed than anyone else on earth to deal with this situation - You could do something about it, but instead choose not to, and to all intent and purpose you remain quiet.

You could have called for the switching on of the Internet in your Tuesday address, which could’ve become your very own ‘Tear Down This Wall’ moment, but more importantly it would’ve allowed the people of Egypt some relief from the constant fear that a media/communications blackout generates. It would've offered them a chance to actually understand what was happening around them, but you couldn’t even go that far. You asked for a transition of power without offering who that should be transferred to, or from for that matter. You asked that things needed to change ‘now’ but refused to mention Mubarak by name. And finally you demanded that any transition be ‘peaceful’ as if the Egyptian people had any say in the matter, and as if the people would’ve wanted anything other than a peaceful end.

Like a first world war British general you are masterful at leading from the rear, and here in the US, whether we voted for you or not, we have long understood that your preferred position on anything is not to have a preferred position. You’ll sit firmly on whatever fence you can clamber up and bide your time smiling down at people as they pass in one direction or the other. I’m almost impressed by your complete lack of backbone, I mean it seems you’re so afraid of a fight that you’d rather expend your energy staying on a wobbly fence in the middle than sliding off to side or the other. Just as long as it keeps you out of harms way, and above any flying fists.

The problem is the rest of the world haven't realized this yet, and many, like most Americans, still believe that the world looks to the US president as the leader of the free world. Now, although ‘free’ seems to have become a matter of perception, you can still prove that the term leader is still applicable when it comes to you.

Although you probably feel like you shot the gun and went too far, the rest of the world are still trying to work out what that hedging language actually meant and find out where you stand on the Egyptian crisis.

I have no doubt that you’re secretly crapping yourself about Mubarak’s obstinacy, especially as it now looks like he’s gonna be hanging on for another 70 years or so. But, for once think of the people before the political ambitions of you and Axelrod, and instead of worrying about clawing back long lost credibility with Mubarak and the rest of the middle-east, how about coming out with real tangible support for those peaceful demonstrators and their children?

There's no doubt that you're the master of the ambiguous, and doing too little too late, but for once be the candidate the US people voted for and slide down off that fence.

Election Day Nov 4th 2008....President Barack Obama

So, today’s the day, and as expected there are numerous reports of shenanigans going on, aimed at stopping the American people from having their say.

From notices sent to students and Hispanic voters informing them that the election has been delayed by a day, to African Americans in Virginia being intimidated by uniformed police who have been menacingly circling their polling stations…nice. To all kinds of problems with the machines, not enough of them, not arriving on time, and/or not working, and/or working but switching a vote for BO to McCain. To robo-calls informing voters to go to the wrong polling station, to polling stations being handed the wrong county’s voter information. Dripping wet ballots no fitting into the machines, to the GOP trying to get a ten day extension for voters that will preference McCain, whilst GOP governors and election officials refuse to allow the polls to stay open for an extra couple of hours in order to deal with the massive demand.

The disenfranchisement of American citizens’ votes is widespread and systematic.

Of course the mainstream media have been all over it, salivating at the latest inferred intimidation, but not one network daring to ask the obvious question; why are these problems effecting a disproportionate number of African Americans, Hispanics and young people? I mean it doesn’t take a political science professor to work out that these are demographics favorable to Barack Obama.

Why is it that Republican pundits can sit on television and jovially tell us that they’d prefer a low turnout? Surely, if a democracy is to truly reflect the wishes of the people, then the people need to have their voices heard, not muffled or silenced. But, the sad truth is that Republicans know they wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting elected if the American electorate actually voted.

Which is why, during all the wall to wall election coverage on TV today, you’ll not hear that question asked. Republicans have deceived the American people into believing this is a democratic system, when in reality it’s a hotchpotch of undemocratic processes aimed at disenfranchising great tracts of the electorate, and keeping a select few in government. Now, that’s what I call un-American!

If there’s one thing that comes out of this election, other than electing the first intelligent president for a generation, is that we desperately need to create a political system that promotes democracy not runs and hides from it.

I remember watching that idiot ‘W’ after his re-election in 04 he was surrounded by a group of very smug looking Republican officials, as he gave a very different speech to the one 4 years earlier. This time they knew they‘d just scraped through, and Bush wanted to make it clear that he didn‘t give a flying f**k about the opinions of the 49% who’d had the audacity to attempt to dethrone him. He told us that he couldn’t have been given a stronger mandate from the American people, and that now he could really get down to work. You know, dividing the country along ethnic, regional, political and religious lines, getting more Americans killed and maimed, getting more of our allies killed and maimed, losing old peoples’ pensions and destroying their hard-earned retirements, and shitting on the hopes and dreams of America’s youth.

It was horrible to watch, but, it’s over now, and tonight the Democrats led by their true and just President Barack Obama, will be given the greatest mandate for change received by a government in a generation. But, with great mandates come great expectations, and the Obama administration have an opportunity to deliver something fundamental to our future progress - a functioning democracy.

With that mandate they must change the political/electoral system. It has to become inclusive, and involve all Americans. Much to the chagrin of America’s elite, I believe they should even consider compulsory voting. America should be the world’s #1 democracy, but the current non-system is beyond a joke.

Being president of the United States is still the single most powerful position on the planet, so it’s no surprise that US presidential elections galvanize such interest around the world. Decisions made here effect everyone, believe me it’s not only Americans who feel cheated when your elections are stolen.

For Americans not to operate a democracy that involves all Americans is bordering on the criminal. 95% of the world’s population are not Americans, which means that somewhere in the region of 1% of the world’s population actually voted for the person who‘s decisions effect the other 99%. Registered voters in the US are in a uniquely privileged position, and you have a responsibility to all the world’s people to use that privilege.

It is in BO’s power to kick open the doors of democracy, and in doing so allow the American people to speak, and finally put an end to the self-serving, morally and ethically corrupt Republican party.

Apart from the 'Vote' button, the images were all found on republican/christian blogs, I skipped the 'a vote for Obama is a vote for terrorism' sign. But, reading the blogs it dawned on me just how nice these christians are, they're all so tolerant, just like Jesus, and not at all ignorant, you betchya!

Barack Obama's grandmother Madelyn Dunham has died RIP

Barack Obama‘s grandmother Madelyn Dunham died today, a day before she could see her grandson elected as the most powerful person on earth the President of the United States of America. What a job she did, my thoughts are with BO and his family, let her rest in peace.

Here's a picture of her taken during one of her happiest days, with husband Stanley and daughter Anne (BO's ma).

Cock The Vote...

According to most sources the latest polls show the race tightening a little. Sure, I know that BO moving from a 12 pt lead to a 9 pt lead in PA isn‘t gonna make a toss of difference, but still, have I missed something? I mean wtf has McGrumpy done over the past week to make anyone more likely to vote for him? He’s been the same stumbling, bumbling old double-talker, and his nudge, nudge, wink, wink running mate has only been slipping in the polls I've been reading, so what‘s with the tightening? Or, is the republican influenced mainstream media blatantly attempting to lower people’s expectations of a BO victory, so it won’t seem like such a shock when the Republicans steal it, again.

Just in case you thought that the world's greatest democracy actually operated as a democracy, it’s worth checking out Muckraker’s list on TPM, which highlights the magnitude of the GOP’s efforts to suppress votes across the country. As you'll see, so far generally they've been failing, but not from lack of trying, they figure if you throw enough shit at a blanket eventually some may stick.

On the one hand you have a massive effort being made by the Obama campaign to get people inspired and involved in their democracy, and on the other you have an equally Herculean effort being expended by McGrumps and the GOP in shadowy court rooms across the country aimed at suppressing those same people. Disenfranchising voters has been the single biggest focus of republican campaigns for the last decade, and in the past it’s worked, so they‘re not gonna be stopping anytime soon. Still, as you can see in Muckraker's TPM piece, this time Democrats have been prepared for the inevitable Republican assault on our democracy, and have been fighting fire with fire. Which, is bad news for the GOP as the last thing republicans want is a functioning democracy, it would mean they‘d have to start adopting policies that actually appeal to people.

All being well, the Democrats should win control of all three branches of government this election, and in the process they'll have fired up millions of new voters, who’ll probably want to vote again in the future. Now, that's just rubbing salt into the GOP’s open wounds.

McCuster's Last Stand - Communist tax plans, a Filibuster proof senate and Joe 'The' Biden

OK, so we enter the last 7 days of campaigning and Pants have started 'McCuster's Last Stand', each day we'll feature a couple of Colonel McCuster's choice attacks, and trust they are as hopeless as the original.

So, what’s first in the 7 day series?

- Well since yesterday’s news that the morally and ethically corrupt Ted ‘bridge to nowhere’ Stevens is now officially legally corrupt too, the Get Off (my lawn) Party has been running around telling anyone that’ll listen there's a distinct possibility Democrats could win enough new Senate seats to achieve a ‘filibuster proof’ Senate. Which is a Senate comprising sixty (of the one hundred) senators who belong to, or are prepared to vote for the same party, thus securing said party with a large enough majority to avoid a ‘filibuster’.

Personally, I’ve never thought of a filibuster as being very democratic. Just because a president can disenfranchise the majority of the popular vote, I don’t see why one senator should be able to s*%t on the wishes of 59 others, but for the GOP, that’s not the point. The GOP see the potential loss of this glitch in our democracy as something Americans should fear, they’re basically saying...

look, we know that when we had power we f^%$#d everything up, and we know that we’ve been totally useless at coming up with any new ideas to fix the problems we've created, but now we’ve become so disliked that there’s a real chance you’re going to elect enough Democrats that they’ll have the power to actually do the things they’ve said they’re going to do.....Please don't.

Call me old fashioned, but an appealling argument it is not. Isn’t this exactly what people are voting for? I mean they’re voting for Democrats because they want them to make changes, they want them to do all the stuff they said would.

If the Republicans think this is their best shot of holding onto power, they're even more deluded than we thought, bring on the filibuster proof senate!

BTW here's that picture of happy old Ted (Stevens) for anyone that missed it yesterday....enjoy!

- Colonel McCuster’s other ’last stand’ is based on his sudden discovery that BO is actually a communist, as according to McCuster he wants to ‘spread the wealth’ by taxing people. The votemaster crew have their take on it today...

...Is McCain going to repeal the federal income tax? If so, how does he plan to finance the government? Or does he mean that the difference between the top rate of 39.6% under Bill Clinton and the top rate of 36% under George Bush is the difference between communism and capitalism?

It’s a good point, BO has all these communist/socialist ideas about taxing people, but McCuster hasn‘t come up with an alternative of his own. Perhaps McCuster sees all those previous presidents; George Bush, Reagan and Nixon as communists too, I mean they all taxed people, and as the votemaster folks explain…

...The purpose of the progressive federal income tax is to spread the wealth...

You know, spreading the wealth into maintaining bridges and roads, and buying new fire engines and police cars, and paying their wages, and keeping our over-used volunteer army equipped with bullets and stuff.

...That Democrats have supported a progressive income tax for decades is hardly news. Does McCain want to keep the tax….It seems this is just another desperate attempt to attack Obama rather than being a serious policy proposal for tax reform...

Senator McCuster it’s all well and good to go about calling people names like communists and socialists, but I’d suggest next time you actually get yourself a plan together, which shows how you’re going to be different.

I mean if you are going to abolish tax that’s great, you may even gain a few thousand libertarian votes too, but people are bound to ask how you intend paying for everything without any tax income. However, if you intend keeping the tax system, then by your book, doesn’t that make you a communist wealth distributor too?

Now, I know BO is taking the easy option and sticking with the tax system, and just aiming to reduce the burden of tax on the middle class, only increasing it on the top 1% of earners, and major corporations, but that doesn‘t really make him a communist/socialist now does it McCuster?

- Finally, I was told that McCuster referred to his old middle-class buddy senator Joe Biden as Joe ‘the’ Biden yesterday, Freudian slip there Senator.

Oldest man on earth found guilty of corruption, plus Palin is 'Diva'

- Finally, the oldest crook on earth, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska has been found guilty of corruption, it had seemed for a while that Stevens was gonna avoid a verdict before the election, as one his jurors had been given leave to return home for a family problem. However, the judge drafted in a reserve juror, and had the final deliberations repeated, and then it was curtains for Ted.

In the weeks running up to the verdict, Stevens had managed to BS the good people of Alaska into believing that he may be innocent after all, and his performance in the opinion polls reflected that growing belief, that was until a couple of hours ago when the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict on all charges.

All of this means that Mark Begich Stevens' Democratic opponent in the race for his Senate seat will be sending him some flowers for his new deck, and a very thankful thank you card.

- There are growing reports of a split between the McGrumpy camp and Blunderwoman's handlers, with McGrumpy staffers referring to Blunderwoman as a ‘Diva’, and as having ‘gone rogue’. It's funny all this has happened within a couple of days of McGrumpy coming out and telling the world she’d be giving back all those clothes at the end of the election, maybe she was left wondering what she was gonna wear if they won!

George Wallace, Georgia, the new caring sharing Sarah Palin, and the repugnant Brad Blakeman

Another great day for electoral votes, shame you can’t keep them as you go along and the candidate with the most electoral votes over the term of the campaign wins!

As a reminder of how cool it is to smoke, here's a pic of Cool Hand Barack!

I especially like Georgia, I mean it’s becoming a close fight, today BO trails by five points. This year happens to be the 40th anniversary of segregationist George Wallace’s run in that nasty three way Presidential election of ‘68. In that year Georgia along with a handful of southern neighbors voted for Wallace, and the continued segregation of races, you know, like black people at the back of the bus, different water fountains, different schools and a different justice system.

Anyway imagine, the historic synergy of a man called Barack Obama winning Georgia on his way to winning the general election. The USA would have their first African American president and Georgia would‘ve sent the loudest message possible that certain things were not just changing, but had changed.

- I ask, is there no end to the humanity of the wonderfully caring running mate of McRubbish? she’s already sacrificed so much for the sake of this great nation, we know she’s responsible for pulling so many people of opposing views together, selflessly working for us. But, today, Sarah Palin takes her nationwide campaign of inclusion to a new level.

We’re told that Sarah (I hope you don’t mind ma’am) is going to be given an auto-prompter to read that’s all about special needs children, and let’s face it Sarah should know best, because she has one all of her own.

We’ve heard from those people who just don’t want to be included in her campaign of inclusion, moaning about things like her past record of cutting funding from programs for little special ones in Alaska. But, these moaners don’t have special children of their own, so how would they know what’s best? Sarah does, which puts her in a unique position to talk about it.

- Meanwhile McNasty is continuing on his bus tour of PA looking to strike a book deal for Joe the plumber. We’ll let you know how he gets on.

- Of course as we know BO’s in Hawaii checking in on his gravely ill grandmother, doctor’s have told him there is a very strong possibility that she won’t make it to election day, and he wanted to spend as much time as he could afford with the woman who brought him up.

As it’s just a few days until the election, and as BO has a huge secret service detail, and needs to ensure he is in full contact, he decided to take his office plane with him. But, as McNasty is never one to miss an opportunity to badly misread a situation, in grand mavericky style he swam against the massive tide of sympathy for BO, and had Brad Blakeman (a surrogate) go on MSNBC and paint the trip as an indulgent holiday ‘to visit grandma’, and wasteful spending on a level of Sarah Palin‘s clothes budget.

Unfortunately for McGrumpy, most people understand that when you’re a week away from election day, and you are one of the two primary candidates, you’ll need to be in constant contact with your nationwide campaign, and to do so you’d probably not want to have to rely on the public library opening times for internet access.

Brad Blakeman epitomizes a lot of what is, and has been wrong with the modern Republican party. They're detatched from the real world, incapable of showing empathy, and right now, as everything seems to be going wrong for them, there's a lot of bitterness, and finger pointing. Perhaps Brad was pushing for a slot on the Palin 2012 campaign, but I wouldn't bank on it Brad, the Republican party's days are numbered and it'll take a long time for this country to forgive what they've done.

Senator McGoo, Ted Stevens, baby killers and mangled messages

So, according to McDesperate on the stump this morning, we now know the truth about BO, and his evil ‘wealth re-distribution plan’, apparently he wants to create a massive welfare system, but where did Johnny McCrappy get this piece of red hot info? Well, it came from BO himself. Whilst explaining how a tax cut worked, BO pointed out that it meant working people would just pay less tax, so they would save money, therefore the middle class would directly benefit from it.

To highlight his point, he went on to say that it wasn't as if he was taking money from working people and giving it to say, a massive welfare system....you see what happened there? BO said the words ‘welfare system’, and with an opponent as quick witted as old McGrumps you just can't go taking risks like speaking words. As quick as a whistle McGrumpy cleverly changed it around, and told everyone that BO was creating a giant welfare system for all of his African American friends, which would be really, really scary.....Brilliant John, just brilliant!

- I don’t like the Ted Steven’s court case one bit. First off, I don’t like that the story’s disappeared from the front pages, and secondly when a jury asks to break for the night during deliberations, because they’re feeling ’too stressed’, it's a bad sign, if they all agreed on a verdict they’d be back out there in a flash with their black caps on.

Then again this is an Alaskan jury, and you know they're gonna be split along partisan lines, which in Alaska means 70% self-serving, corrupt repugnants, to 30% angelic democrats. Their instinct would be to aquit the oldest man on earth, so in those circumstances perhaps a long debate is a good thing. Anyway, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, and keep everything crossed for Mark Begich.

-The latest repugnant 527 TV commercial in Califronia accuses that evil black man running for president of hating babies. They refer to a speech he gave on teen pregnancy in which he talked about the desperate need for all new babies to be born into a loving environment, they needed to be wanted, and how teen pregnancies often left the mother feeling ‘punished’ by the arrival of a baby.

The ad - shows the clip of his speech where he talks of teen mothers feeling ‘punished with a baby’ then the clip abruptly stops, and cuts to a late twenties/early thirties(?) mother who repeats punished with a baby! punished senator? Then the ad wraps up warning us not to trust a president who doesn't care about the sanctity of life etc.

So there you have it, according to McNasty, a vote for BO is a vote for baby killing.

Of course it all sounds quite unbelievable, but as I dug a little deeper I came across the picture above, which seems to show Senator Obama trying to eat a baby. Of course, on seeing it I was as confused as you, I searched for some explanation, but came up with nothing. Finally, I realized it takes two to tango, and my dance partner was the devil on this one, I decided to go straight to the horses mouth, and contact the Obama campaign. I called and pushed for a response, maybe I pushed a little too hard, here’s what they told me…‘Sir, as I explained we’re extremely busy at the moment, no one by that name works here….sir, you’re being ridiculous, if you don’t have a name of someone you would like to speak with, I’ll be forced to hang up….no, he‘s traveling at the moment, please sir, unless you give me a real name I’m going to hang up…..OK, then I’m hanging up…’ and, they hung up.

Now, don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just putting it out there, make of it what you will.

A tax dodging liar, and a chicken McNegative flier....

So, by now we all know that Joe, the plumber who told BO he earned $250K/Year, and wanted to buy his boss's business, but was worried by the level of tax he’d have to pay under an Obama presidency, isn’t called Joe at all, he’s called Sam, and he doesn’t earn $250K/Year, but $60K, and he isn’t a plumber (licensed anyway), and apparently never planned on buying his bosses business. Hell! It even turns out he’d pay less taxes under BO’s plan, but the bloke’s not bothered by that because he doesn’t even pay the fucking taxes he’s supposed to, the dick owes back taxes!

Sadly, I can’t say that I was particularly surprised by any of the revelations. I mean they didn’t vet their vice presidential pick, so why bother checking out some unlicensed tax dodger in the woods of Ohio? Anyway, a trifling insignificance such as the truth isn’t gonna get in the way of McGrumpy telling what he thinks is a great story.

The exposure of Joe-Sam’s potpourri of falsehoods hasn’t dulled McGrumps enthusiasm for claiming Joe-Sam speaks for all real Americans. He mentions the bloke more often than Giuliani mentions 911, and is even running a series of TV commercials telling us how great Joe/Sam is, and how all real Americans are like him.

Maybe his point is that real Americans dislike taxes so much, they just don’t pay them! Instead, they leave it up to fake Americans to pick up the bill for all the schools, hospitals, fire trucks and the fucking bridges they drive over on the way to their unlicensed work.

But, does McCain really believe that real Americans are like Joe-Sams? We‘ve long known that truth is a cheap commodity for the McCain campaign, and maybe I’m just being politically naive, but surely they could’ve come up with a better roll model? Perhaps coined a story that was at least loosely based on the truth.

Still, I guess I should be happy that the McCain campaign is about the most dis-organized in history, lurching from one confusing non-message to the next. This week, they have a lying tax-dodger as their Ohio pin-up, and the chicken McNegatives flier campaign going on in Arizona. Bring it on!

Secretary of State Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama for President...

We warned McGrumpa that his robo-calls were losing him voters, now they've turned off a Republican Secretary of State...

Keith on Joe the Plumber

Just cuz he's better than me....

BO palls around with some real terrorists!

Yaaaawwwwwnnnn! Well I’m bored of all this political crap, nothing juicy’s happened for hours now, I’ve no interest in fake plumbers who don’t earn 250K, and who don’t pay their taxes, but still complain about them. I don’t give a flying fuck about McGrumpa’s Letterman appearance, he looked uncomfortable, and obviously just showed up to try and stop the bleeding. What has this country come to when a late night comedy show host has to be pandered to by a presidential nominee? I don’t know what was more painful McGrumpa’s groveling, or Letterman’s fake humility, sickening.

The only thing I found of interest over the last few hours was BO palling around with some real terrorists at that gathering of be-cassocked Catholic’s in NYC, McGrumpa was there too. Both addressed the white-tie audience -- incidentally, why do people in the 21st Century still insist on dressing up like Bing Crosby? Apparently, the point of the whole brahuha is to make jokes while poor people die from hunger in the streets, although McGrumps gave a good account of himself BO was the funier of the two, is there nothing McGrumps can do better?

Here are their respective deliveries, McGrumpa went first...

McGrumps


The Messiah

Thursday Oct 16th - day after 3rd Presidential Debate

Last night’s debate was the last in the 4 game series, early polling of independents showed that Obama won this one as convincingly as he and his running mate Joe Biden have won the three previous debates.

Apparently Barack Obama and his buddies at that evil organization they call ACORN have been attacking the ‘very fabric of our democracy’!?

McCain threw everything he could at cool hand BO last night, even accusing BO and his buddies at ACORN of 'threatening the very fabric of our democracy' but came out looking like an angry old curmudgeon. Grumpa McNasty just couldn’t sit still, constantly rustling around in his seat making audible grunts and groans as Barack Obama spoke. When the camera was on him he smirked a lot and adopted more sarcasm than an English Waiter serving a plaid suited Texan, in short he was the most un-presidential curmudgeon imaginable. However, according to the numerous republican pundits employed by the networks for post debate punditry, this was exactly what they wanted to see, yeah don’t ask!

Here’s a few other opinions....
__________________________________________________________

First, there was this from Tom Daschle on Countdown, I paraphrase: "about 2/3 of the American people see John McCain as an angry candidate, it looked to me that he spent the last 90 minutes, trying to convince the other third."…..brilliant!

Check it out direct Daschle’s about a minute in…

__________________________________________________________

Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire
Reactions to Last Night's Debate
If you missed last night's presidential debate, CQ Politics has the "bests and mosts."

I thought Obama won. Here are some other reactions.

Ezra Klein: "McCain scored the most points, and lost the debate. He was looking to land shots, and often succeeded. But the effort to find openings and vulnerabilities left him with little time to appear presidential. And if he connected with jabs, he never found his knockout blow. Worse, the attacks came at a cost: The angry energy showed on McCain's face as clearly as in his answers."

David Yepsen: "John McCain lost the final debate of the 2008 presidential campaign Wednesday night. As a result, he may well have lost the election, too."

Chuck Todd: "As for the big pic, it's hard to see how this debate changed the trajectory of this race. It's now clear, for posterity, that Obama won the debate season. McCain won the convention season and that got him in the game, but the combination of the massive economic downturn with the debates has put McCain in as deep of a hole as any nominee has been this late in the process since Bob Dole. The map continues to look more favorable to Obama than McCain. But it's now in the hands of the voters. There's not much more information left to learn."

Andrew Sullivan: "Obama won this for the third time. A small prediction: there will be YouTube mash-ups of McCain's facial reactions on the split screen. And they will have a longer life, for good or ill, than many of the substantive exchanges."

Kevin Drum: "I know I'm partisan, but McCain seemed completely out of his depth tonight. He was flitting from point to point all night without ever putting together a coherent argument, and then grabbing miscellaneous attacks from the rolodex in his head whenever some bright idea popped into his mind. His energy level was weirdly erratic, tired at times but then suddenly perking up whenever he got annoyed by something and remembered some zinger that he wanted to fire off."

Marc Ambinder: "Tonight, we saw a McXplosion. Every single attack that Sen. McCain has ever wanted to make, he took the opportunity tonight to make. Around 30 minutes in, McCain seemed to surrender the debate to his frustrations, making it seem as if he just wanted the free television."

Joe Klein: "The structural weakness of McCain's position was evident every time Obama described a program -- health care, education, energy -- in the third debate. CNN's focus group of independent Ohioans would send the dials on their electric gizmos spinning into the stratosphere. They loved the idea that government would spend more on education or energy or regulate the health-insurance companies."
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Sarah Plain Guilty

Johnny McBush and Sarah Plainey made a rare joint appearance at a rally in Virginia earlier today, as it's been at least 2 hours since they last campaigned together something must be afoot. But, I just can't think what.

I mean it can't be anything to do with her being found guilty of abusing the power of her elected office to pursue personal vendettas, can it? The mainstream media don't seem to think it's relevant at all, and who can blame them? what does it matter that the person sitting a heart beat away from becoming the leader of the free world is a cheap crook?

Here's the ambiguous language of the Alaskan ethics investigation findings (c/o Wonkette):
Guilty, schmilty, her guilt doesn't bother the media, and why should it? She's a great gal, she goes to church and chases witches and their spells away, she hunts polar bears and cooks their little cubs.

What more could you ask of the leader of a complex global economy? Well, in my humble opinion a fuck of a lot more.

The MSM's reaction to the ethics investigation's findings has been a fraud in itself, it's totally outrageous. This person is standing for election as Vice President of the United States to a seventy two year old President with a history of cancer, yet I have had CNN on all morning (Monday) and there has not been a single mention of the investigation's findings. Now, the news may well be kept quiet over here, but the rest of the world will be reading all about it, what a fucking embarrassment!

I am starting to loathe McCrap and his amatruerish campaign, and anyone who could still vote for the current Republican party. I have had it with their desperate struggle to hold onto power, for the sake of power, their election has nothing to do with the best interests of the American people, it's purely political, and purely about what is in their best interests.

If Sarah Palin was the single most qualified person in the Republican party to stand as Vice President then they are without doubt a spent political force. If she hadn't been so palpably under qualified the media wouldn't have had to spend so much time scrambling to paper over her many character flaws.

Perhaps the fact that she knowingly abused her powers and then assured the American people that she hadn't, did not surprise the media, but what does that tell you about the expectations we have of our leaders? Has the bar really fallen that low?

There's another issue in all of this, you hear people talking about Wooten being a nasty piece of work and deserving it, perhaps he did. But, whether you think she was justified or not, you have to remember that before he dared to divorce sister Palin, Michael Wooten was a respected member of the Palin household, he was plain old uncle Mike. Sarah Palin never complained about any of his abusive behaviour before, perhaps she was cool with all the drinking, and tasering, and moose worrying, or was it that she didn't feel that the public needed protecting from him as long as he was married to her sister? what does that tell you about her character?

However you look at this, it's an outrage and definitely not becoming of a potential Vice President. A diarist at the DailyKos over the weekend questioned what the media reaction would've been had Joe Biden been found guilty of the same abuse of power....just a thought.

Where's the fucking media coverage?

West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home, country road

The latest American Research Group (ARG) poll has BO ahead by 8 pts in West Virginia....so I ask, WTF is going on?

This is the state where BO took barely 25% of the vote during the Democratic primary. I know I've been telling anyone who'd listen that WV's 5 electoral votes were not a lost cause, but I didn't really think he could do it.

So wassup with that? Well, a lot of pundits have put it down to Joe Biden's enthusiasm for that filthy crap liars call clean coal, but I ain't buying it. Sure, there's a few people working in the WV coal industry, but there's loads more who'd like to be able to breath, and they've had enough of coal corporation CEOs taking their morning craps in West Virginian drinking water resevoirs.

No, here at Pants all the experts agree the massive gain is down to the economy. Not only is the recession costing jobs in WV, but it's also effecting tourism, and when tourism dries up West Virginians struggle to get hold of food staples like visitor. Having said that I think the BO campaign could do a lot worse than risking dropping in on the state themselves, a show of strength. If McNasty has to start fighting for states like MO, WV and GA it's all over.

Voter fraud, Florida 2000 was nothing compared to what we're about to witness

Remember Florida 2000 and the 'stolen election'? of course you do, all that nonsense about people wanting to actually count votes and stuff. But, do you remember the woman in the middle of it all? she was a favorite of the neo-cons too, a little brainless, but always had a smile on her face, except here in the picture I've posted of Congresswoman Katherine Harris!

Yeah well, it all came down to her intervention in the end, and that was it, we got 'dubbya' for the next 8 years, and what a price we paid. But, 'my friends' I've got some bad news, that was nothing, b-b-b-baby you just ain't seen nothing yet.

The Obama campaign met a great challenge by registering millions of new voters, but registering voters and having the Bush installed neo-con officials around the country actually process those registrations are two quite different challenges.

Today we've heard about the first of the 'problems' with all the new voter registrations. It turns out that a community organization called ACORN, who'd been employed by the Obama campaign to register voters, dropped off loads of false applications, like names that didn't exist and addresses that weren’t there and stuff.

Now, I'm not condoning it, but this is what you get when you pay people a commission on each form they get people to fill out. In this case it looks like they filled them out themselves, most apparently were in the same handwriting, maybe it was a neo-con plant placed to discredit the whole process. Either way, the point is these are not votes, none of these invented people would've been able to vote, yet the republicans will use this to cast aspersions on millions of legitimate registrations, the beginnings of a perfect republican plot.

I just hope the polls hold up, because if this thing gets anywhere near close it's going to get very, very dirty.

Wednesday October 8th - Day after the debate diaries and commentary from around the ethersphere

What a screamer last night's debate wasn't. It had been billed like a classic prize fight, we'd been told that McOlden was gonna come out swinging, this was gonna be a game changer. This was gonna be McNasty in his element in the famed town hall format (town hall meeting my arse), the young pretender wouldn't stand a chance he was gonna be found out by a few searching jabs. The old campaigner was gonna float like a hoveround power chair and sting like an STD, the way they’d spun this thing it seemed all McBitter had to do was show up, but alas, as we’ve come to expect from the McRubbish campaign, it was all less than straight talk.

All we got was the same bitter stumbling old man, remember how McNasty had turned off voters by refusing to look his opponent in the eye? well I wonder what voters will make of ‘That One‘.

Here’s a few other opinions....
__________________________________________________________
From Sara K Smith at Wonkette

Substantive, Civilized Debate Disappoints

Seriously, what was up with that super boring debate last night? John McCain was supposed to call Barack Obama a terrorist pal, and then Barack Obama was supposed to say “Hey man that is just wrong” and rip off McCain’s testicles and sauté them gently before feeding them to Tom Brokaw with un sauce béarnaise which is precisely how an elitist is supposed to confront a grizzled old war hero in a Town Hall. Instead we got a lot of respectful disagreement, which was dull. Sure, the reaction last night was bad enough. But witness this morning’s sad collection of headlines:

• Brokaw Off His Game in Debate Snoozer


• Downturn in Decibels, Too


• In a Stifling Town Hall Debate, the Tie Goes to the Front-Runner


• Gnawingly dull debate won’t halt the Obama Tide


• A dull debate, but narky old man McCain struggles after insulting Obama as ‘That one’


• Barack Obama wins second presidential debate over John McCain in a snoozer


• McCain wins (narrowly) a boring debate

John McCain has one more chance to show America he’s a steady hand at the tiller, my friends, and that means one thing: next week’s debate will feature something filthy involving Reverend Tony “Rezko” Ayers getting mauled by a moose, or else “that one” will probably definitely be president, unless Florida votes Republican.
__________________________________________________________
From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

Debate Moves Undecided Voters

Democracy Corps had a focus group of undecided voters in Nevada watch last night's debate:

"Unlike the first debate, when Democracy Corps research showed half the voters remaining undecided and the two candidates splitting the other half, the vote following the second debate showed a decisive shift toward Senator Obama. This debate was a clear victory for Obama who made major gains not just in the vote but also on personal favorability and key attributes like 'has what it takes to be President,' which ultimately drove undecided voters into his column."

In addition, Fox News and CNN focus groups of uncommitted voters also said Obama won.
__________________________________________________________
From Steven R's Diary on today's The DailyKos

Gallup Explosion!!! Obama 52!  McCain 41!  +11!

Is it over?  you decide...  Check out this!

Obama: 52%  (51%)
McCain: 41%  (42%)

Nearly all interviews in today's report were conducted before Tuesday night's town hall style debate in Nashville. Any movement in voter preferences as a result of this debate will be apparent in coming days.

Voter preferences seem to have stabilized for the moment, as Obama has held a double-digit lead over McCain in each of the last three individual nights of polling.

This is in stark contrast of the bullshit that Hotline is trying to sell (claiming a tie among men = 1% Obama win) and Zogby, who shows Obama +12 among Independents, and just as strong among partisans, yet only up 3 nation wide.

Gallup has earned a long strong reputation, and today's polling confirms that this election is really headed in one direction...

The best news? This is ALL BEFORE yesterday's debate!

Also from Gallup, voters believe that Obama's economic plan is a net plus.

Forty-three percent of voters say Barack Obama's economic and tax plans make them more likely to vote for him, compared with 30% who say this about John McCain and his plans. In fact, more voters say McCain's plan for the economy and taxes makes them less likely to vote for him.

Most voters say the candidates' past positions on the Iraq war will influence their vote. In general, voters tend to view Obama's past Iraq war opposition as a plus -- 43% say it makes them more likely to vote for him, tying his economic plan as the voting factor making the biggest positive contribution to the Obama candidacy. With this positive endorsement of Obama's war opposition, it is thus not surprising that McCain's support for the decision to go to war in 2003 is viewed as more of a drawback in voters' minds.

The surge talking about the surge isn't working...

First it was Michigan now McNasty gives up on economy!

So, McNasty was right after all the economy really isn't his strong suit, what's more it seems the rest of America agree with him too, the more McOlden talks about it, the less he seems to know.

Whilst his opponent Barack Obama has made significant gains in virtually all polling, nearly every decision, or move McOlden has made relating to the economy over the last few weeks has been wrong. Unsurprisingly he's giving up, he's tried to understand it, but he just can't, so now he's put his hands up and asked us all to 'turn the page'.

I mean what do we want of our next president? a fucking noncy know it all? Of course not, what the country needs right now is a strong leader, someone you can have a beer with, someone to watch baseball or hockey with, a leader who knows which team won the Stanley Cup last year, and John McCain is that man.

Let us never forget that this man McOlden managed to come in 894th place out of 899 naval academy students, now you don't pull off that kinda achievement by being a noncy know it all. Apparently Admiral McOlden pulled some strings to ensure that five cadets finished even lower in the class than Mcolden Jnr. BTW, if you were wondering, the five that finished behind him are all doing well in advertising, well, specifically advertising boards, they wear them during all major sales.

Turn the page! WTF!

Did you notice the electoral college map?

After hearing all that post debate commentary telling me how great Governor Palin looked, and how wonderful it was that she could say her name correctly, I spent most my morning in my bathroom throwing up, and nearly missed my opportunity to point you to the incredible electoral-vote.com map below.

It shows BO taking a 338-185 lead over McShitty with 15 votes (North Carolina) tied. It is pure cream, but I don't think I should stop there, the folks at electoral-vote.com aren't the only people being overwhelmed with Barackaballots there were some incredible polls coming out of the swing states.

On Wednesday these numbers arrived from Quinnipiac University after they polled the key swing states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania (MoE 3.5%):

Florida: Obama 51, McCain 43 (O+8)
Ohio: Obama 50, McCain 42 (O+8)
Pennsylvania: Obama 54, McCain 39 (O+15)

Considering McLoser has to win Florida and Ohio, and now he's withdrawn from Michigan, if he’s to have a realistic chance of winning this thing he'll need PA too. However, you look at this, it’s a tough hill to climb, even for someone as great looking as Governor Wink.

Here's what Peter Brown from the university’s polling institute says:

"It is difficult to find a modern competitive presidential race that has swung so dramatically, so quickly and so sharply this late in the campaign...Sen. John McCain has his work cut out for him if he is to win the presidency and there does not appear to be a role model for such a comeback in the last half century."

Hear that John, no precedent in the last fifty years…..yes Governor we know there have been lots and lots of presidents, a precedent is something different dear.

To add to the McCrappy’s pain there’s this from the Rasmussen daily tracking…

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday again shows Barack Obama attracting 51% of the vote while John McCain earns 44%. For each of the past eight days, Obama has been at 50% or 51% and McCain has been at 44% or 45%.

To top it off here’s a few other polls worthy of note, all are from Fox/Rasmussen and all are must win states for McRubbish:
New Mexico - Obama now by 5
Nevada - Obama takes the lead
New Hampshire - You know the state that just loves that maverick, Obama now by 10
Rasmussen have moved Michigan from ‘leans’ Dem to ‘likely’ Dem
Virginia - Obama leads for the second week running
North Carolina - Obama up by 3%

Even West Virginia and Texas are down to single leads for McNasty, now wouldn’t one of those be the icing on the cake!

Finally, apparently it wasn’t all BO this week, there was one state where McCrap and Co. actually increased their lead --Nebraska, I’m saying nothing.

The Vice Presidential debate and Governor Palin's Dairy Queen stand in!

Mmmm….there’s just so much to get up to date with!

Well, first I guess I should give a brief synopsis of that thing they called a debate last night, I understand that the reason the Republican representative didn’t have a clue about what they were talking about was because Governor Palin, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate was still in training yesterday and so was unavailable for the debate last night, that’s why we witnessed Senator Biden debating the manager of the Wassilla Dairy Queen, who had kindly offered to stand in for the Governor.

Anyway, it went like this...

Alaska, Alaska, Mavericky goodness, Alaska, wink, wink, team of mavericks, Alaska, six packs, Maverick, bi-partisan, Alaska, wink, heal click, wink, wink, it’s drill baby drill, Alaska, pipeline, wink, Hockey I mean soccer Mom, two heal clicks, nudge, wink, spending, Alaska, third grade class shout out, Mavericky Alaskan Soccer team, Thank you, thank you.

I mean I know this was supposed to be a political debate, but considering the circumstances and the last minute drop out I think she did really, really well. You have to remember that the stand in didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, and although it was pretty obvious at times, over all I think she handled herself well, she even mentioned one of John McNasty’s policies, which is incredible when you think about it, and she looked just great!

I did feel that Gwen Iffle was a little tough on her, I know the questions had been prepared ages ago and were all on the subject of politics, but it wouldn’t have taken a brain wave person to think up at least one question about making an M&M Smudgy or something.

Sure for most of the time it was obvious she didn‘t have a clue, but who would eh? you can forgive her those repetitive nervous winks at camera, obviously there’s no way the real Governor Palin would wink at the United Nations when addressing them. Credit where credit is due I say, she did Dairy Queen proud last night, and I bet she gets a rousing reception when she gets back to the Wassilla branch, they’ll be throwing back swirls ‘til the early hours.

Well done the stand in.

I am hoping that I’ll suddenly wake from this horribly disturbing dream soon. It’s the only way I’m able to deal with what happened last night, this must be a dream. America has become an Idiocracy, our standards have slipped so far that there were pundits on television last night trying to convince anyone that would listen that she did great, that by definition she is qualified to become President!

The woman gave a ‘shout out’ to some 3rd graders, for God’s sake it was the vice presidential debate, not a fucking game show!

This country happens to be the world’s greatest super-power, and with a crashing economy and not one but two wars going on, it is in an extremely perilous state. The purpose of this debate was to reassure the people of this country and the world at large that both of these candidates, if called upon, were capable of handling the job of President, as one could become the most powerful person on the planet, and Palin is winking, clicking her heals and giving ‘shout outs’.

Frankly, it brought home to me just how dangerous McUnbelievablyShit’s choice was, she is so clearly out of her depth, I almost feel sorry for her, McBollocks is another story all together. It is ridiculous to think that the Republican party have no better candidate for Vice President, what a thoroughly political choice this was.

This choice wasn’t made with the best interests of the American public in mind. I don’t care how Fox News casters claim that she exploded expectations, if that was exploding expectations, WTF were they expecting?

Anyway, in other news McRubbish is continuing to be found out, it seems the people of Michigan have seen through it now and join us lot in California as a state McCrap doesn’t feel is worthy of his message, because we will see through it. He’s effectively shut down operations in Michigan, I am sure with the hope that Barack Obama is stupid enough to follow suit, which he obviously must not, cannot and will not do.

Wednesday brought in a new month and a new shape to the electoral college map, at last I’m feeling some reserved confidence in the US electorate, and beginning to believe that they’re not quite as stupid as the main stream media, and most politicians would like them to be. The last two weeks have been an absolute catastrophe for team McPlain, the economic meltdown has been one aspect and it’s clear with the shenanigans in the lower House and the confusion among the general public that no one really has a fucking clue what’s going on, but the one thing that has stuck is McCrap’s poor handling of the crisis, after all the fundamentals are strong, right?

McAngry read BO’s introspection as somehow being indecisive, but I guess BO feels it’s better being indecisive than being decisively wrong. BO was also accused by team McLosing of taking too long to respond, but then it turns out McCrap responded before he even read the bill, perhaps BO likes to know what he’s voting on. At least he actually bothered to read the fucking bill, Johnny!

It’s good to see all those caring Fiscal Republicans, you know the ones that voted against the bill last time around, because they were so concerned about the cost to the taxpayer, yeah that lot! Well now they’re agreeing to support it, but what changed you ask, did the bill get trimmed down so it was less of a cost to the taxpayer? No, the bill had an extra 100 Billion dollars of pork projects added to it.

Fiscal Republicans my ass, they held off until they got the 100 Billion in corporate tax breaks they needed for their paymasters. I hope there are conditions allowing this bill to be revisited as soon as the Dems are in power. It’s so obvious that these disgusting repugs are fucking the country up as much as they can, just so a Barack Obama presidency has a big pile of shit, but no money to deal with it when he takes office. These people should be in prison.