War criminals running for Congress

After the fascist media tried to normalize war crimes by openly promoting Lynndie England's whiny book, it should be little surprise that at least 2 current Republican candidates for Congress are war criminals themselves.

This article provides a glimpse of North Carolina's Ilario Pantano and Florida's Allen West - both of whom are war criminals:

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/10/28/nc07-gop-t-candidate-who-shot-two-unarmed-iraqis-60-times-likely-to-be-elected-to-congress-next-week

West pleaded guilty to assaulting a prisoner in Iraq and was forced to retire by the Army. Pantano, a former Marine, murdered 2 Iraqis who he knew were unarmed.

In all honesty, I don't think either Pantano or West will be elected, but that's not the point here. What's amazing is that the Republicans expect us to abide by laws passed by war criminals.

The GOP can go gag on a turd if they think I'm going to obey laws that violent war criminals passed. So don't fuck with me, Rethugs. For the Republicans, this election can end either badly or very badly. If they want to push their luck, that's their problem.

Judge bans air

I know you're a little alarmed by the title of this entry, but seriously, that's about what this story is like.

This week, a federal court ordered the closure of the file-sharing site LimeWire, accusing it of causing folks to engage in copyright infringement. The court acted like LimeWire held a gun to people's heads and made them violate copyrights.

The ruling was made by Judge Kimba Wood, a Reagan appointee who was dropped as Clinton's choice for Attorney General because she hired an undocumented immigrant as a nanny.

In issuing the ruling against LimeWire, Wood whined that record companies "have suffered - and will continue to suffer - irreparable harm from LimeWire's inducement of widespread infringement of their works." Aw, poor babies, those record companies.

The court might as well have just banned computers for "inducing" people to use LimeWire. Or banned air for "inducing" people to not die, which "induces" them to use computers. That's how stupid this case is.

When is Congress going to act against these right-wing activist judges like this?

(Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2616212420101026)

Second-best political ad of the season?

Peep this:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/28/914548/-New-KY-DEM-Anti-Rand-Paul-Ad:-BRUTAL!

That campaign commersh hits Rand Paul for allowing his thugs to brutalize a MoveOn activist by kicking her to the ground and stomping on her head. I think this may be the second-best ad of the season (the best being Alan Grayson's Taliban Dan ad, despite being widely criticized by the media).

Unfortunately, the Kentucky Democratic Party is such a bunch of wusses that they'll only show the ad after 10 PM because they think it might scare small children.

In the meantime, I think Rand Paul should adopt a new campaign song. Here's a hint: The song was a top 10 hit for the Brothers Johnson some years back.

GOP thuggery story of the day

I guess it's stupid season, because this is getting to be an everyday thing now.

The type of assaults carried out by the campaigns of Rand Paul and Joe Miller have now expanded into Washington state, where the campaign of perennial crybaby Dino Rossi physically attacked a dissenter:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/28/914481/-Another-Teabagger-Assaults-Another-Young-Female-Protester

Ironically, the Rossi thug in this story is a failed author who once wrote a book that supposedly teaches people how to "react quickly to a situation."

This assault - like the others - is a sign of electoral desperation. But in Rossi's case, I don't think it matters, because Rossi has less of a chance of winning the election than Miller and Paul do (0%).

Gas-X ad with Hillary Clinton look-alike found

For years, a friend of mine has insisted that there was a Gas-X commersh that featured a woman who looked exactly like Hillary Clinton sitting in a movie theater.

Sounds pretty believable, huh?

So from time to time, I've been on the lookout for this ad on YouTube. And, buy George, I think I've finally found it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOcNbZnh7j0

That commersh reportedly aired throughout 2003. I actually recall seeing it (particularly during court shows), but I never realized until now how much the woman in the middle resembled Hillary Clinton!

A hilarious TV tidbit from America's Lost Decade survives!

No enthusiasm gap on 'Sesame Street'! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Even the 'Sesame Street' kick-ass crew knows what an important kick-ass patriotic duty voting is.

The ol' Ses takes democratic republicanism seriously. Now, 'Zoom' might be a military dictatorship (because all the kids on the show dress alike), and 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood' is obviously a traditional monarchy (with King Friday XIII and all). But on 'Sesame Street', your vote counts!

This segment from the 1983-84 season proves how democracyish the ol' Ses truly is:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRw4iuq498Y

Notice how - unbeknownst to Big Bird - election officials have turned his digs into a polling place, as shown by the sign on his door that prohibits electioneering. Not like people always obey these signs. I've seen right-wing activists campaigning at the polling place here, even though it's illegal.

Vote for 'Sesame Street'. It's too important to stay home.

Man brutalized for disagreeing with Eric Cantor

Embattled right-wing Virginia congressman and all-around troublemaker Eric Cantor tolerates dissent about as well as Bush or Rand Paul or Alaska's Joe Miller do - i.e., not very well. (This is the same Eric Cantor who made up that ridiculous story in which he falsely claimed somebody shot at his office.)

In Louisa, Virginia, a local Democratic activist showed up at what was advertised as a public Cantor event at a coffee shop. (The event was not private, despite media reports.) When he arrived, town police and county sheriff's deputies were promptly called. Although the man did nothing violent or disorderly (and had an invitation to the event), cops violently knocked him to the floor and brutalized him.

The incident was caught on video, so don't lie about it, teagaggers:

http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=13386275

Then the cops arrested the person who recorded the incident, even though he was on a public sidewalk.

Later, the man who was arrested in the coffeehouse observed, "The Louisa County police department was basically used by Eric Cantor's campaign to make a political statement." Well, of course. That's what Republicans do. They abuse public agencies to carry out their agenda. They like to complain that the government's too big - then they get "elected" and prove it by suppressing dissent and imposing their views on the public.

Meanwhile, the Cantor campaign vandalized Democratic opponent Rick Waugh's car with a racist slogan (hence the icon at the top of this entry).

(Source: http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=13386275)

More Rand Paul crybaby thuggery

Rand Paul is a thin-skinned little baby who can't take any criticism at all.

After several people on YouTube posted the video in which Rand Paul's thugs (one of whom turned out to be one of his county coordinators) brutally beat a young woman, the Paul campaign promptly complained to YouTube to get the video pulled. Naturally, YouTube complied - calling the video "violent."

Violent? I think the assault by Rand Paul's brownshirts was violent. The video was only documenting their thuggery. This is as bad as when we had all these Taliban followers trying to censor "violent" video games, when they did nothing to stop real-life violence.

So Rand Paul not only hates the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, but he also hates free speech.

Can't take any criticism, Rand? Tough shit.

Luckily, I'm from Kentucky - so if Rand Paul wins, I get to keep an eye on him and his thugs. Thankfully, he's not in Hawaii or some other state where I'd have no chance of watching him like a hawk. Even more thankfully, the Christine O'Donnell disaster guarantees the GOP won't win back the Senate regardless of Paul's performance.

What I find even more amazing is that when Jack Conway ran an ad criticizing Paul for kidnapping a woman, the media fell over itself to attack Conway just for bringing it up. Reminds me of when some whack-a-doodle senator whined about being "outraged by the outrage" - as if criticizing somebody's scandalous behavior is worse than the scandal itself. How nice of the media to make this decision for us.

I'm watching you, Rand. Win or lose, this is the wrong state for your bullshit. Just ask your Tea Party friends what happened to their rally in Wilder, Rand.

Try me, tough guy.

Rand Paul thuggery

So this is what fascism looks like.

Long story short: A group of Rand Paul followers physically attacked a MoveOn activist outside the debate last night. Among other things, they stomped on her head. This assault was caught on video - so don't deny it, teabaggers:

http://www.fox41.com/Global/story.asp?S=13386076

Win or lose (most likely lose, for them), I'm not going to let these assholes get away with ANYTHING. If I have to personally keep an eye on their district offices, I will. Drives 'em nuts, but I fucking CHALLENGE them to stop me.

Incidentally, I witnessed Bush's Nazis assaulting a woman back in 2000, so this is a pattern for them.

Chamber of Commerce plunks down big bucks for drug war

Every national, state, and local Chamber of Commerce organization constantly jaws about their support of smaller government. But this story lays hulk to this pretense and proves that the Chamber of Commerce is all about "regulation for thee, not for me."

The California Chamber of Commerce has just plopped down a cool $250,000 to run misleading, dishonest ads opposing a sensible referendum that would legalize marijuana.

This from the "small government" Chamber of Commerce? Why does a "small government" group support extending a failed prohibition policy? Not only has the War on Drugs (particularly efforts against marijuana) imprisoned countless Americans, but it's also ruined the careers of quite a few who were targeted for daring to oppose this war.

The Chamber of Commerce is as much about big government and control as anybody is.

Meanwhile, the national Chamber of Commerce accepts money from foreign corporations and even dictatorships to run ads supporting Republican candidates.

David Duke still an idiot

Hey, David Duke, you stupid idiot, the '90s are over. So get rid of that hairstyle.

Seriously, Duke just put out a video praising the Tea Parties in which he looks like Homer Simpson (with an oddly raised area around his mouth) except he has that helmet hairdo that was so popular in the '90s.

Better yet, David Duke should just go away altogether. Nobody cared what he thought 20 years ago - and they care even less now.

Poll shows Democrats with decisive lead

I figured that once we got within 2 weeks of the election, the pollsters would stop playing chicken and catch up to reality. Now they have.

A new Newsweek poll shows the Democrats with a lead in the upcoming House elections. Though the lead is small, it is nonetheless decisive:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/22/poll-obama-approval-jumps-dems-more-fired-up.html

The Democrats even hold a lead among likely voters using a likely voter model that has already been proven to be too generous to the GOP. Plus, this survey also shows a significant narrowing of the feared enthusiasm gap that has plagued this campaign cycle.

The message from this poll is that the election won't be a Democratic landslide - but the Democrats will come out ahead by a pretty commanding margin.

In all honesty, I knew this would happen, but nobody seemed to buy my prediction. Now these skeptics are the ones with the humble pie caked all over their faces.

If we (the American people) can keep some of the worst Republicans out of the Senate AND keep the GOP from retaking either house of Congress, I can't say the political climate will be any worse than what it was. And it looks we're going to accomplish all of the above. I'm a Green, but I'll take a weak Democratic Party over Republican megalomania any day.

Maybe this is what happens when the Republicans run a bunch of totalitarian lunatics instead of acting like a normal party.

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "My Very First Cell Phone"

For Internet, the Belv was a dialup town until 2007, when it finally became a high-speed town. And now, for phone service, it's finally becoming a cell phone town.

Today, I finally got my very first cell phone! I promised last week I'd get one, because fraudulent phone calls had made the traditional landline useless. And now I've made good on this pledge, because today my very first cell phone arrived.

This week's episode of 'Lawn Chair Quarterback' covers this revolutionary event:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qni_PL9ta2w

I hoped to be able to use a cell phone for the very first time within the 10 minutes allotted for 'LCQ', but the phone was in that miserable plastic packaging that you almost need a buzzsaw to cut through. (I'm talking about the clear, hard plastic that we've all seen as packaging for electronics.) So this turned out to be like the infamous Geraldo Rivera special about Al Capone's secret vault. I'm talking about the show in which the vault couldn't be accessed by the end of the show. Getting to my new phone was kind of like that.

This new phone shall be used sparingly. It costs a quarter a minute, and that'll be a barg, because I don't let my life revolve around talking on the phone all day. We've all met people who seem to have their ear permanently attached to their phone - even in the landline era. But with me, the buck stops here. I economize.

Fair warning: The government comes down harder on fraudulent calls to cell phones than to landlines.

Windfall for Juan Williams

I guess in conservaworld, once you make unfair, judgmental comments about entire groups of people, you've got it made!

After Juan Williams got fired by NPR for his remarks about Muslims, it was no bother for Williams. Fox News just went right ahead and rewarded him with a $2,000,000 contract (which is a massive increase from his previous salary).

I guess all you need to do to win a lucrative contract from Fox News is make a stupid statement that gets you in trouble somewhere else.

As the right-wing furor over Williams's firing unfolds, Jim DeMint has introduced a bill to punish NPR for firing Williams by cutting off all of NPR's funding. Trouble with Jim Demented's bill is that NPR doesn't get any federal funds to begin with. (It's funded by member stations.) But Fox News does: It's called the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was a bailout for right-wing media.

Maybe we need to stop funding Fox News by repealing the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which was passed by a fascist Congress anyway. If Congress won't act, the states must.

It begins

An election just wouldn't be an election if the Rethug-a-lugs didn't try to steal it - and this year is no exception.

Officials in Bexar County, Texas, scheduled repaving of a parking lot in a heavily Democratic precinct to coincide with early voting - thus discouraging voters from showing up. The area has a lot of people in wheelchairs who were unable to get through the mess.

Local residents want a federal investigation into the suppression of the vote.

Trying to rig the election again, eh, Repubs? Well, then GO AHEAD AND TAKE YOUR VERY BEST FUCKING SHOT!!!!! I so DARE the Republicans to cross me on this. I singlehandedly scared the Tea Parties out of Campbell County, and they're crossing the wrong guy. Trust me: They don't want me to humiliate them even worse than I already have.

I can make the next 2 years very, VERY difficult for them - depending on how Election Day goes. I've been in smaller rooms with bigger people, and I can't be intimidated.

Try me. I fucking dare you.

(Source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/anger_flares_on_the_east_side_over_early_voting_105468893.html)

Art-burner James Aiona

Keep an eye on this right-wing idiot.

Hawaii Lt. Gov. James Aiona is the Republican candidate for governor. And he is a fucking nutcase.

He has admitted to being part of something called Transformation Hawaii - a chapter of the International Transformation Network. The International Transformation Network is a "ministry" that (among other things) advocates burning native art. Because the ITN hates gays, the group has also been involved with legislation in Uganda that attempts to exterminate the country's gay population.

The difference between this and what the Taliban did is...? Well, nothing. The Taliban also destroyed art - as did Nazi Germany.

The ITN's view is that native beliefs stand in the way of the ITN's agenda of trying to impose beliefs on native people. So - in the eyes of the ITN - native art must be reduced to ashes.

As lieutenant governor, Aiona also led a Transformation Hawaii religious ceremony at a public school and had it broadcast statewide. I guess he's just like Christine O'Donnell in having never heard of separation of church and state.

So this is where the Republicans are at these days. They've abandoned all semblance of sanity and have become totalitarian loons.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/19/911697/-GOP-gov-candidate-says-hes-in-group-that-burns-native-art;
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2010/10/19/8306/2124)

Dick Armey sez: You cheated!!! Waaaaah!!!

Now I remember why I hated this right-wing fuckchop so much.

It's still 12 days until Election Day, and Dick Armey is already proving what a sore loser he is. Presented with the fact that Democrats are voting at a better rate than Republicans in states that have early voting (a fact that debunks the media's narrative of a Republican wave), the hapless Billy Joel look-alike whined that this is nothing but vote fraud by the Democrats.

So voting is fraud now?

Dick, grow up! Stop being such a baby! Your side is discredited, and you know it. So shut up and go away.

Although right-wing waterworks over an election that hasn't even happened yet seems relatively new, throwing a fit about the actual results isn't. In every single cycle lately - even when the Republicans win - right-wingers make baseless claims that their opponents have committed voter fraud. In all cases that I know of, these claims are debunked.

In fact, Armey himself claimed it in 1996. On election night, he gave a drunken TV interview in which he ranted and raved about the media taking Alabama away from the Republicans - even though nobody disagreed that the GOP won that state.

In a saner world, morons like Dick Armey would just dry up and blow away. But it's the media that gives him a platform for his sour grapes.

(Source: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/dick_armey_so_many_dems_are_voting_early_because_t.php)

DCCC = wusses

If the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee isn't willing to support Democrats, who in the party needs 'em?

The DCCC has yanked all its support from Florida's Alan Grayson - even though this contest was actually more competitive than some in which the Democrats are running DLCers who were much more likely to lose.

This proves once again that Democratic "leaders" don't care about electing anybody effective and will abandon candidates because they deem them too liberal. It's just like the time they abandoned that candidate in Missouri because he supported legalizing marijuana. Or how the DLC intentionally sabotaged that special election in Hawaii this year by running their own candidate, which split the Democratic vote.

The DCCC wants Taliban Dan Webster to defeat Grayson, I guess. I know a lot of folks consider Grayson's win last time a fluke, but that's still no excuse.

The only poll that showed Taliban Dan winning by a commanding margin was a Republican internal. At least one other poll showed Grayson leading by just as much. So Grayson would still have a pretty strong chance if the DCCC didn't abandon him in order to save Blue Dog hacks who aren't worth shit anyway.

America doesn't deserve an idiot like Taliban Dan. But maybe the DCCC does. If Taliban Dan wins, I'm going to be pointing one finger squarely at the DCCC. Not like that'll ingrain the DCCC with any sense, because they've got pretty thick skulls.

Now do you understand why I switched to the Greens?

Democratic "leaders" refuse to draw blood, so I have to do it for them.

Corporations buying pro-GOP coverage?

Over the past week or two, I've been starting to get a strange feeling about the media being not quite on the level, and I think commenters on other blogs are starting to get this feeling too.

The Citizens United ruling enables corporations to spend as much as they want on political campaigns - and not disclose it. True to form, corporate expenditures in this campaign have increased markedly since the last cycle. And few would disagree that corporations strongly favor Republicans.

But I haven't seen any more actual campaign advertising than I usually do. In other years, the mailboxes and airwaves are already saturated with political ads well before late October, so campaigns don't really have many more places to advertise now than they did last time.

Yet at the same time, the media's actual coverage is - by far - more supportive of Republicans than I've ever seen it. This at a time when I haven't actually seen any more support for the GOP among actual people. (I see less public support for the Republicans now than at any other time since I've been old enough to notice.)

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I now truly believe that corporations are paying off news organizations to give favorable coverage to the Republicans. Think about it for a minute. This is technically a form of advertising, but it no longer has to be labeled as advertising, and the donors no longer have to be disclosed.

Simply put, it's advertising masquerading as news coverage.

I still avidly read "mainstream" newspapers (as difficult as that's become), and in no previous election season did I see so much coverage that seems so obviously orchestrated to write a narrative about what the election results will be. As I've said before, however, Republicans winning back Congress is not supported by polls that avoid the flawed likely voter screen - or by public opinion. Still, the media just keeps sticking to its GOP-friendly narrative, as if it's trying to create a bandwagon effect.

I'm not talking about just the media's usual right-wing bias. I've known since I was 15 that the media runs with stories that are fed to them by Republican campaigns. I'm talking about something more.

After seeing the widening disconnect between the media's narrative and actual public opinion, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Big Business is now paying the media generously for Republican-friendly articles. No doubt whatsoever. I think it's as much a part of their advertising budget as regular ads are.

I would BET THE FARM on it. You don't see coverage that's so friendly to a discredited party while the party continues to lose public trust, unless there's something propping up this coverage.

Grover wears underpants ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

'Sesame Street' is a topsy-turvy world where nobody ever acknowledges the existence of underpants. It's as if underpants were never even invented. They don't even seem to understand the concept of underpants on the ol' Ses, as monsters walk around in their birthday suits (or surrounded by a trash can).

But Grover has finally broken the silence.

In one fairly recent segment, we learn that Grover has mistakenly ordered 1,000 pairs of underpants instead of just one:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K5PHakJwz0

Is it just my imagination, or is Grover really masturbating at 1:00?

As for the underwear, I'm surprised Grover was ordering any at all. I just thought he strolled about Sesame Street with everything just hanging out. Or maybe he wears thong underpants that are so skinny that they just get buried in that jungle of blue fur.

Grover. He will cut your taxes!

Real people

In this election cycle, a pattern is becoming clear: Republicans won't use real people in their campaign ads - opting instead for out-of-state actors. That's because nobody supports the GOP's garbage unless they're paid to appear on the party's behalf.

There's nothing wrong with being a professional actor. But campaign ads aren't supposed to lie to people by making them think an actor is actually employed in some other field and is endorsing a candidate based on their own experiences. And you damn sure don't do this while ridiculing the very voters you're supposed to appeal to.

But the Republicans do it all!

In Ohio, right-wing gubernatorial candidate John Kasich ran a commersh that claimed to show a real Ohio steelworker. The purported steelworker charged that the Buckeye State's Democratic administration had cost jobs.

But it turns out that Kasich is so dishonest that he lied about the man being a real steelworker. The man is actually an out-of-state actor paid to appear in the ad.

This clip exposes Kasich's deception:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R48YAEcKZeU

(That video is worth watching just for the music!)

West Virginia's right-wing Senate candidate John Raese did something even more outrageous. In a commercial for his faltering campaign, Raese didn't hire real West Virginians. Maybe it's because Raese doesn't live in West Virginia himself: He lives in Florida (and is therefore constitutionally ineligible to serve as a senator from West Virginia). To find people to appear in Raese's ad, Republicans went to Philadelphia to look for professional actors who could produce what they called a "hicky" appearance.

In short, Raese hires out-of-state actors to portray what he thinks West Virginians look like. If there ever was a sign of the modern Republican Party's elitism, that would be it.

This is the flip side of a form of elitism that's been much more prevalent in the GOP since the mid-'90s. They like to shout down opposition by saying they governed the way they did because we voted them in. Except that we didn't. I don't think I've ever voted Republican except in one county race years ago in which the Democrat ran to the right. And nobody even disagrees that Al Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election. Bush claimed he had a mandate without even winning the most votes!

In other words, Republicans think some voters' votes count more than ours. "You don't support us? Sorry, you don't count." I honestly don't see a huge difference between modern GOP elitism and the Divine Right of Kings.

They think it's their birthright, just like how now they think it's their birthright to win back control of Congress.

The corporatists have gotten to the state courts too?

America is supposed to have 3 equal branches of government that act as checks and balances of each other. But lately, there are some lawmakers who try to make themselves judges, some judges who try to make themselves lawmakers, and some Presidents who try to make themselves both. (I'm talking about Bush here - except he wasn't even a legitimate President.)

The Supreme Court went unchecked early this year in the Citizens United ruling - which created special "rights" for corporations out of whole cloth. As a result, dirty corporate money (much of it sponsored by totalitarian foreign governments) has flooded the airwaves during this election cycle.

There was no legal basis for the Supremes' ruling. None. It was an activist ruling.

Now folks in Montana are being treated to a big stinking repeat...repeat...repeat...repeat...repeat.

District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock (like Sherlock Hemlock, that dude on 'Sesame Street') has tossed out a state law against corporate bankrolling of political campaigns that had stood for almost 100 years. The 1912 law had been approved in a voter referendum - but I guess the will of the people takes a back seat to corporate "rights" created by an activist state court.

In issuing this ruling, the judge ruled in favor of the Western Tradition Partnership, a secretive right-wing think tank.

So corporations are people now? Clearly, they're being given more rights than people, since they've just been allowed to outvote a voter-approved law.

In the meantime, I think it's time for a statutory fix to the Citizens United ruling. Just pass the old law again and dare the rogue Supreme Court to do anything about it.

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/18/AR2010101804283.html)

Another poll shows failure won't be rewarded

I saw an interesting quote on another blog the other day. It said something like, "America is drifting left - but will our presumed betters allow it?"

Public opinion is indeed trending leftward, but the other side is trying to tell us we can't have it. The media is trying to write a narrative that says the upcoming election will be a Republican wave - but I saw a poll yesterday that seems to confirm that it won't be.

Earlier this month, I blogged here about a poll that showed that Republicans are losing support among self-described moderate voters. The poll I saw yesterday also forecasts a river of waterworks among the GOP fold: According to that poll, 76% of Obama voters plan to vote Democratic in the looming House elections, while 8% plan to vote Republican. At the same time, 71% of McCain voters plan to vote Republican, while 9% plan to go Democratic. So that's actually a gain of several points for the Democrats. (Furthermore, Obama has higher approval ratings than any other President of the past several decades had at this point in their first term.)

As I said before, if polls of individual contests don't bear this out, it's because they use a likely voter screen that is now nothing short of discredited. Other blogs have gone over this over and over, but the media has a narrative to tell, so they're sticking to this flawed screening method.

The biggest foreteller of the Republicans' doom though isn't a poll. Rather, it's a very simple fact: The Republicans ran the country for decades and proved they couldn't govern competently. But in the 21 months since they've been out of power, America has seen the most sustained economic recovery in 30 years. The American people couldn't possibly be so fucking stupid that they'd reward the Republicans for their past failures by returning them to office. I've seen plenty of weird things happen in my time, but I've yet to see anything that weird.

If the elections are honest, it ain't gonna happen. Simple as that. You know it and I know it, so let's cut the bullshit.

Even now, with the election only 2 weeks away, the more people see of the Republicans (a party that seems to have rebranded itself as the fascist Tea Party movement), the less they like them. As if they didn't hate them enough already.

If the pop-up media can't even see what's in plain sight to everybody else, that's pretty sad. I personally suspect the Republicans are going to get their clocks cleaned again, and I'm almost certain they're not going to retake Congress. Our media overlords are about the only people who haven't figured this out yet.

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "Phone Phun"

What do you do when a rogue bank calls your house 30 times a day for 6 days demanding that you pay a debt you don't owe?

The 1988 Tim would sit back and take it.

But this is the 2010 Tim!

A certain bank keeps calling here asking for a woman who I don't even know, in an attempt to collect a debt. On Tuesday morning, I sent the bank a letter in which I called them "pigfuckers" and ordered them to stop.

But they are obviously illiterate, because they still keep calling. In fact, they even called at 1 AM today. My phone line is completely useless because of these assholes.

So I'm fighting back. Hard.

True, I may be spending a few dollars to get a cell phone to use instead of the traditional landline. (Remember, I have to keep the landline because that's where I get my Internet. However, I will be disconnecting the phone. Also bear in mind that the phone company could put a stop to the harassing calls at the snap of a finger, but in the 26 years since I started getting calls from school bullies, it has chosen not to.) But I'm not depleting my bank account without a fight. If I have to spend extra bucks, I'm going to HAVE A LITTLE FUN with it. I'm thrifty, so I'm gonna get what I pay for, dammit!

That means responding in kind to the harassers. I do unto them what they done unto me. In other words, I call 'em back! As another example of my Midwestern thrift, I found their toll-free number on the Internet instead of calling them at the countless long-distance numbers in several different states that they call me from.

But let's suppose a cell phone will cost me maybe $8 more a month (not including $30 for the phone itself). That fucking ENTITLES me to do $8 of damage monthly to the business of the assholes who won't stop calling me. Fair is fair.

My latest 'LCQ' episode shows one of the ways I fight back against rogue debt collectors like this bank:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80zn-LuJ394

The duck call has worked with other debt collectors - until now. The bank I'm dealing with now is as thick as a brick, and the Internet is rife with complaints against this bank. They've even called me twice in the half-hour since I finished filming that episode - which of course has already resulted in them being called back.

Taliban Dan the Social Security-slashin' man

Florida's Dan "Submit To Me" Webster is one of the most worthless pieces of shit running for Congress this year.

The Republican politico is known as Taliban Dan - a fact highlighted in a campaign ad for Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson. (Grayson's commersh is by far the best campaign ad I've found this season.) When Taliban Dan tried debunking the ad by posting the entirety of the speech that was quoted in the ad, all this accomplished was to prove that Taliban Dan was even worse than the ad made him appear.

Taliban Dan came across as a totalitarian whack-a-doodle in that speech, but even that doesn't do justice to his serial meanness. Taliban Dan also wants to make senior citizens PAY BACK past cost-of-living increases in their Social Security. He could just as easily be called Kal Kan Dan.

No, I'm not making this up. Taliban Dan is that much of a scuzz.

When you think the Republicans can't get any more extreme, they always do, don't they?

So let's get this straight: Under Taliban Dan's plan, an elderly person who has seen their Social Security benefits increase because of inflation would now have to PAY BACK the increase they got. Yep, that's what Taliban Dan said. That's Taliban Dan's ridiculous idea, not mine.

Taliban Dan's idea isn't even on deficit reduction grounds. He simply thinks Social Security recipients shouldn't have gotten an increase, period.

This ranks right up there with the time some right-wing lawmakers about 10 years ago wanted to create special entitlement programs for descendants of slaveholders as "reparations" for the government "taking" their slaves under the Emancipation Proclamation. Only in conservaworld can the government make Social Security recipients pay back their benefits so slaveholders' descendants can be reimbursed for slavery being banned.

Incidentally, Taliban Dan has also been endorsed by a frequent speaker at white supremacist events - which isn't too surprising, considering the racism that pervades the Republican Party these days.

Wheel of misfortune

We've known for years that 'Wheel Of Fortune' host Pat Sajak is a right-wing clod, but he just gets more extreme every time he opens his cavernous mouth.

Now Sajak - in an article for some right-wing blog nobody reads - says government employees shouldn't be allowed to vote. His so-called reasoning is that workers in the public sector have too much of a stake in government.

Sajak, you idiot, the whole reason voting exists is because people have a stake in things. For example, I have a stake in keeping nuclear waste dumps out of my state, so I'd be inclined to vote for a candidate who wants waste disposed of elsewhere. Folks in another state might have a stake in having it dumped here instead of in their state, so they'd vote for somebody else. In a democratic republic, voters vie for influence. We don't vote just because we like to collect "I Voted" stickers.

"I'm not suggesting that public employees should be denied the right to vote," Sajak writes. But keeping public employees from voting is exactly what he recommended.

As others have pointed out, Pat Sajak's stance is significant because the past 30 years have proven one thing: Ideas like Sajak's that seem wacky at first are inevitably incorporated into Republican campaigns - not to mention the DLC. I've also learned that once their bizarre ideas are put in force, it's nearly impossible to reverse them. (Does the Telecommunications Act of 1996 sound familiar?)

If Sajak's idea was enacted, there would have been several major elections in which I wouldn't have been allowed to vote, because I worked for a public agency like the library.

Maybe voting should be limited to where people actually have a stake. In 1994, a right-wing referendumb in Massachusetts that bars cities from having rent control laws passed because (in addition to the "election" being rigged) much of the vote was cast in wealthy suburbs where people owned their own homes and which lacked rent control laws. These suburbs had no stake in the measure, yet they voted on it.

Is it fair that wealthy communities that had no stake in rent control were allowed to deny affordable housing to the rest of the state? Pat Sajak apparently thinks it is. (Cow pies to the Massachusetts legislature for not overturning this measure. They've had 16 years to do so, and they've sat on their hands.)

A country run by Pat Sajak would be one of cheap elitism that bears no resemblance to how a democratic republic is supposed to operate.

Number Painter and gorilla try to educate Ron Johnson ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Wisconsin's right-wing Senate candidate Ron Johnson doesn't know how to make a 5.

In a recent campaign spot, Johnson writes numbers on a board while he complains that there aren't enough financially secure types in the Senate. His attempt at a 5 looks more like an 'S', a 3, a snowman, a pot-bellied stove, or just an illegible squiggle.

'Sesame Street' to the rescue!

'Sesame Street' in the '70s is known for several memorable series of number sketches. The ones with the baker falling down the steps were designed to teach how to count with each number. The ones with the famous Number Painter - played by the late Paul Benedict, who also played Mr. Bentley on 'The Jeffersons' - were meant to teach the shape of each numeral.

And Ron Johnson could use the one about the number 5:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrgpSP0aPfM

In that sketch, the Number Painter breaks into a cage at the zoo just to satisfy his strange fetish of painting numbers on things. In the process, he befriends a gorilla, who finishes his 5 for him. (I wonder if that gorilla knows Paul the Gorilla from 'The Electric Company'.)

Why does the Number Painter always put the handle of his paintbrush in his mouth? That goes against everything we've ever been taught about how to avoid picking up germs.

But if you're Ron Johnson and are deficient at making a 5, that skit is for you!

Motorist kills candidate with SUV

Evil. Pure evil.

This story shows what America is up against.

Natasha Pettigrew was the Green candidate for Senate in Maryland. Last month, as she was bicycling, she was struck by a motorist in an oversized Cadillac Escalade SUV. The driver did not stop after hitting Pettigrew. The 30-year-old candidate died from her injuries:

http://www.tbd.com/articles/2010/09/green-party-candidate-hospitalized-after-accident-12745.html

The driver who killed Pettigrew said she thought she hit a deer. A deer on a bicycle? I do not believe that for one second.

I don't even need to tell you whether or not I think this was politically motivated.

Why child molesters are voting for Ron Johnson

This blog has been rather light lately, because the Republicans have set the bar for stupidity so high that they've ceased to be interesting.

But what Wisconsin's Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson did was so incredibly stupid that it's almost beyond belief:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/11/909456/-WI-Sen-Breaking:-Johnson-Hired-Pedophile-Shortly-After-Child-Sexual-Assault-Conviction

In a nutshell, Johnson's company hired a pedophile right after said pedophile's sexual assault conviction.

It's unknown however if this convict was part of the now-infamous program in which Johnson benefited from prison labor. This story also follows revelations that Johnson testified before lawmakers against a bill that would have made it easier for victims of child sexual abuse to sue abusers.

Can America really afford to lose Russ Feingold to this creep?

Another year of dog food for Grandma!

For yet another year, America's seniors and disabled are going to be skipping meals.

Yesterday, the government announced that - for the second year in a row - there will be no cost-of-living increase for Americans who receive Social Security or disability benefits. The excuse is that inflation wasn't high enough.

What??? If there's any inflation at all, there's supposed to be a cost-of-living increase. Them's the rules. If the Tea Parties don't like it, too fucking bad.

Meanwhile, Congress has received automatic pay increases - which violate the Constitution's provision against receiving pay raises in the middle of a term.

For years - starting in 1995 - Congress intentionally undercounted inflation just so the cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients would be less than it should be. There was one year when they were caught and had to pay America's seniors what was stolen from them, remember? Maybe there ought to be a cost-of-living adjustment this year just to make up for all the years when Congress lied.

Congress has money for bailouts and useless wars, but not enough to pay seniors what they put into the system?

And did I tell you that the head of the Social Security Administration (who administers these rulings) happens to be a Bush appointee?

Meanwhile, there's a sensible bill in Congress to pay seniors a onetime $250 sum to help ease the burden created by the lack of a cost-of-living increase. But not a single one of the bill's 127 cosponsors is a Republican, of course.