Obama Noms on Babies

this website, Yes We Can (Hold Babies) is pretty awesome.

Happy Birthday Hillary

Hillary Clinton turned 61 yesterday---I've posted her badass DNC speech in her honor.

The GOP Has Figured Out Liberal Feminists

reason #427 to love Rachel Maddow:

Chris Matthews Doesn't Pfuck around with Pfotenhauer on the Subject of VP Responsibility

"I guess despite her trip through Neiman's and Sak's she still didn't pick up a copy of the Constitution".

I guess Chris Matthews has finally had it with the BS he keeps getting served by Nancy Pfotenhauer among other McCain camp reps---he actually calls her out when she tries to avoid answering him by changing the subject---and Bill Burton from the Obama camp doesn't really know what to do, so he just kind of sits silently and occasionally starts laughing....if I were you I'd skip the first 3:30, which is just more dumb talk about Palin's wardrobe (can I get a WHO CARES?)

Lolcat Tuesday!

To keep myself from posting lolcat pictures constantly, I've arbitrarily decided to poast ay cuple on tsdays frm nowe ahn.

I Just Realized: Sarah Palin is a Mean Girl

Joe Biden said recently that an Obama Administration would face an international crisis the first 6 months in office.

Palin made note of that comment at a rally in Reno, NV today:

Gov. Sarah Palin suggested today that Barack Obama is unprepared to serve as commander in chief, laying out scenarios she said made the country vulnerable to an international crisis under his leadership.

Palin fed off the words of Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, who said Sunday that Obama would be challenged by an international crisis in his first six months of office. During a rally at the Reno Convention Center, Palin listed four scenarios "that would place our country at risk in an Obama administration," including sitting down with dictators and sending American troops to Pakistan over the objections of the country's leader.

"But I guess the looming crisis that most worries the Obama campaign right now is Joe Biden's next speaking engagement," Palin said. "Let's call that crisis scenario number five."

Seriously, did McCain Campaign advisors come up with this schtick for her to ignore issues and spend her time thinking of nasty things to say at rallies? Or is that just her own brilliance?

Jezebel.com put a nice perspective on it thanks to CNN:

Oh, and while she's running around mocking Joe Biden's statement that the Obama Administration might face an international crisis, CNN pointed out that the Cuban Missile Crisis started off Kennedy's Administration; the fall of Saigon, Ford's; the first World Trade Center bombing, Clinton's; and 9/11, Bush's. Silly facts.

I'm starting to think that, because Sarah Palin is clearly a Mean Girl, and since Tina Fey wrote Mean Girls, Palin is actually just Tina Fey spewing her own brilliant parody of the worst kind of bigoted, inexperienced, woman-hating GOP candidate that could possibly exist. Anybody with me?

(hotline), (jezebel)

7 Ways to Make Sure Your Vote is Counted

This list was written by Megan of Jezebel in her article, "Voter Suppression And You: A Guide For Unreal Americans" in Jezebel today. The full article details many of the current efforts by the GOP to disenfranchise Democratic voters. Don't let it happen this time!


1. Vote early, preferably in person. Most of the people who will be out and about to mount challenges will be doing this on Election Day proper. This also gives you a chance to makes sure you are registered properly and challenge back if anything is wrong.
2. Insist on a paper trail. Many states have this as an option now, but in some it's only upon request. Request.
3. Don't wear anything that signals your voting preferences. Some states have little-used laws that prevent "electioneering" in polling places, and there have been signals that the folks there to challenge some voters will be challenging people wearing Obama stuff. Leave it at home or in your car.
4. Bring picture ID. Your state may or may not require that you have it, but it is one good way to verify your identity and residency if challenged. If your address isn't up-to-date, many states can issue free temporary change-of-address cards, or just do the paperwork to get it officially changed today.
5. Stand your ground, politely. The point of a challenge is to keep you from voting, and they can win in two ways. The easiest thing to do — which is why they're doing it — is to embarrass you into leaving. Fuck that. If you can't win the challenge at the moment, demand a provisional ballot and a written explanation of what you need to do to make sure that it is counted. Speak only to official poll workers, and ignore the partisan hack if s/he tries to "help."
6. Ask for help. If there is a problem with your electronic machine, do not press done and leave the polling place. Insist that a poll worker help you until your vote is cast correctly. If it cannot be, tell them they need to request assistance from the appropriate authorities and refuse to leave or cast your ballot until the problem is corrected. If you leave, you've probably already lost. Do not forget to have a paper trail.
7. Ask for more help The Brennan Center For Justice, among other groups, will have lawyers on hand to take reports of problems and offer legal assistance by called 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Use it if you have to. Hopefully you won't have to.

David Sedaris Has a Way With Words

David Sedaris offers this analogy to help us understand undecided voters: "I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. 'Can I interest you in the chicken?' she asks. 'Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?' To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

(the new yorker)

Daily Show Rage: "What the Pfuck?"

Last night's episode of the Daily Show was even better than usual, thanks to Jon Stewart's rage over the separate comments by Palin and McCain advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer about small town America being the "real America". I read various reports over the weekend of Stewart giving a speech to a college audience in Boston and reacting to the Palin statement with a very clear, "Fuck you", so I was wondering how censored his reaction to the statement would be on Comedy Central. Well, thankfully for us, his rage didn't seem to subside before Monday's show, as proven by his repeated conclusion that Palin's statement would mean that September 11th happened in "fake America" (and that bin Laden was going to be mad when he realized that he bombed the wrong America!)

Rage on, Jon! We're right there with ya!

Click here to watch the full episode.

Palin Rally Racists of the Week

Thank the Immigrants

So it turns out, California is not a reliably blue state because of those gay Jews in Hollywood, or those gay atheists in San Francisco! According to Brian Beutler and Ezra Klein, conservatives can now have a new reason to hate the first and second generation Latinos in California: they vote Democratic, and are a big reason why CA goes blue. It makes sense though--looking at the several images I stole from Ezra, it's easy to see that the farther you get from the coast (disregarding San Diego), the more conservative it gets. Point being, there are a lot of white voters in CA who vote Republican, and Bush had a 5 point margin among white voters in 2004. Thank you, hefty Latino minority, for keeping CA blue.

Amy Poehler rocks my world.

I'm glad that Sarah came off as mostly stiff on SNL last night---she left most of the funny stuff to tina fey and amy poehler. The opening skit was actually so stiff that it made me uncomfortable for the most part, but this amy poehler rap is pretty much the funniest thing ever:

Powell Endorses Obama on Meet the Press

NYT Profile of Cindy McCain outrages McCain camp

McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb has labeled the piece, "gutter journalism", but it actually does a pretty good job of humanizing the Stepford Cindy McCain.

article after the JUMP.

Sarah Haskins explains the Disney Princesses.

they so do have daddy issues.

Obama Advertises on Virtual Billboard in Online Game

A first for a presidential candidate--but as Jalopnik.com says: Have no fear, McCain is advertising on Yo-Yos!"

Barack Obama has begun advertising on billboards within the virtual world of an online video game in what appears to be a first for a presidential campaign. Players of the online racing video game Burnout Paradise on the Xbox 360 Live network noticed billboards promoting Barack Obama and the website VoteForChange.com, which helps people determine how to register to vote and where to vote.

(jalopnik)

ACORN-bashing=preemptive delegitimization of an Obama win

Gawker's amusing and informative FAQ on ACORN:

"OK so what's up with everyone suddenly talking about ACORN?

As we said, nuttier conservatives have been on the ACORN-bashing bandwagon for years now. That it's finally trickled up to Drudge and Fox means they're scared they're losing the election and they need to preemptively delegitimize Obama.

What are my talking points for when crazy relatives argue that ACORN stole the election?

What we're dealing with so far is minor voter registration fraud. The questionable registrations number in the double digits in most states, and most of them have been flagged and caught by either ACORN themselves or election officials. Furthermore in many places the false registrations are required by law to be submitted anyway, so that ACORN isn't guilty of, say, tossing out the forms of Republicans they sign up. They do try to flag the fake ones as fake, but regardless, the fake ones are still being caught. Also: voter registration fraud does not coherently lead to voter fraud, because if you register one man 75 times, how will he vote 75 times, exactly?

More importantly, the election can't be stolen if it hasn't happened yet, and voter registration fraud does not explain in any way a double digit lead for a candidate in national tracking polls. Like, wtf, how are you making this argument, are you slow? ACORN registering Mickey Mouse is why Barack Obama is up 12 in Pennsylvania? Ok, sure, whatever you say".

FAQ: Wait, What's Up With ACORN?

Rachel Maddow calls Palin a liar face.

As far as pundits go, Maddow is pretty much the bomb.

See here the unabashed lying of Sarah Palin:

NO on Prop. 4

What I don't understand is how Californians keep rejecting issues, and the same issues keep making their way onto ballots. Abortion opponents have now put the issue of parental notification on the ballot for the THIRD TIME IN FOUR YEARS.
The last time I voted against this, I sat down to think it through before the vote. If I had gotten pregnant at 15, I would have probably done anything I could to avoid telling my parents. Even if that meant an unsafe or self-induced abortion. Imagine the plight of the molested teenager, pregnant with a father or stepfather's baby, having to notify her parents in order to obtain an abortion.

It is my belief that anti-abortion groups promote this idea so strongly because they believe that notifying the parents of pregnant minors will lower abortion rates. This it will not do. Prop. 4 would simply raise the number of bootleg abortions, if you will. Unsafe, unsanctioned, across state lines, self-induced. I would hope that if I were ever a mother, and my teenage daughter faced this, that she would trust me enough to talk to me about it. But if she didn't, for whatever reason, I would much rather my daughter have a safe, legal abortion that I don't know about, than a dangerous, illegal, black market one that I don't know about. Wouldn't you?


Abortion Rights on the Ballot, Again

Vote No on Prop. 4

Bob Herbert sums it up once again

"The lesson for Americans suffused with anxiety and dread over the crackup of the financial markets is that the way you vote matters, that there are real-world consequences when you go into a voting booth and cast that ballot. For the nitwits who vote for the man or woman they’d most like to have over for dinner, or hang out at a barbecue with, I suggest you take a look at how well your 401(k) is doing, or how easy it will be to meet the mortgage this month, or whether the college fund you’ve been trying to build for your kids is as robust as you’d like it to be.

Voters in the George W. Bush era gave the Republican Party nearly complete control of the federal government. Now the financial markets are in turmoil, top government and corporate leaders are on the verge of panic and scholars are dusting off treatises that analyzed the causes of the Great Depression.

Mr. Bush was never viewed as a policy or intellectual heavyweight. But he seemed like a nicer guy to a lot of voters than Al Gore.

It’s not just the economy. While the United States has been fighting a useless and irresponsible war in Iraq, Afghanistan — the home base of the terrorists who struck us on 9/11 — has been allowed to fall into a state of chaos. Osama bin Laden is still at large. New Orleans is still on its knees. And so on.

Voting has consequences.

I don’t for a moment think that the Democratic Party has been free of egregious problems. But there are two things I find remarkable about the G.O.P., and especially its more conservative wing, which is now about all there is.

The first is how wrong conservative Republicans have been on so many profoundly important matters for so many years. The second is how the G.O.P. has nevertheless been able to persuade so many voters of modest means that its wrongheaded, favor-the-rich, country-be-damned approach was not only good for working Americans, but was the patriotic way to go.

Remember voodoo economics? That was the derisive term George H.W. Bush used for Ronald Reagan’s fantasy that he could simultaneously increase defense spending, cut taxes and balance the budget. After Reagan became president (with Mr. Bush as his vice president) the budget deficit — surprise, surprise — soared.

In a moment of unusual candor, Reagan’s own chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Martin Feldstein, gave three reasons for the growth of the deficit: the president’s tax cuts, the increased defense spending and the interest on the expanding national debt.

These were the self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives who were behaving so profligately. The budget was balanced and a surplus realized under Bill Clinton, but soon the “fiscal conservatives” were back in the driver’s seat. “Deficits don’t matter,” said Dick Cheney, and the wildest, most reckless of economic rides was on.

Americans, including the Joe Sixpacks, soccer moms and hockey moms, were repeatedly told that the benefits lavished on the highfliers would trickle down to them. Someday.

Just as they were wrong about trickle down, conservative Republican politicians and their closest buddies in the commentariat have been wrong on one important national issue after another, from Social Security (conservatives opposed it from the start and have been trying to undermine it ever since) to Medicare (Ronald Reagan saw it as the first wave of socialism) to the environment, energy policy and global warming.

When the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the discoverers of the link between chlorofluorocarbons and ozone depletion, Tom DeLay, a Republican who would go on to wield enormous power as majority leader in the House, mocked the award as the “Nobel Appeasement Prize.”

Mr. Reagan, the ultimate political hero of so many Republicans, opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In response to the historic Brown v. Board of Education school-desegregation ruling, William F. Buckley, the ultimate intellectual hero of so many Republicans, asserted that whites, being superior, were well within their rights to discriminate against blacks.

“The White community is so entitled,” he wrote, “because, for the time being, it is the advanced race...” He would later repudiate that sentiment, but only after it was clear that his racist view was harmful to himself.

The G.O.P. has done a great job masking the terrible consequences of much that it has stood for over the decades. Now the mask has slipped. As we survey the wreckage of the American economy and the real-life suffering associated with the financial crackup of 2008, it would be well for voters to draw upon the lessons of history and think more seriously about the consequences of the ballots they may cast in the future."
NY Times

SCARY

Barack Obama is a terrorist. Ask any McCain supporter, they'll tell you.

They Hate Our Freedoms

www.declareyourself.com

Sarah Palin Flute Magic

If you ever watch a video on this blog, please click on this one to watch Sarah Palin playing the flute in the 1983 Miss Alaska competition. I couldn't watch it all the way through, but I'll give you a dollar if you can

Hasselbeck vs. Walters 10.01.08

Babs calls Hasselcrack's ass out on defending Sarah Palin, asking her the fair question of why she thinks Palin would make a good president. Hasselcrack's response:

"Well, since I've been studying for this pop quiz forever, I — tell me why Barack Obama is qualified. I mean, give me three tangible things he has done."

Mmm, I like my fallacious arguments short and sweet and delivered by conservative women. Which is good, considering that there seems to be a surplus of such arguments in the current world. The View certainly does the Republican side a disservice by having the insanely ill-reasoned Hasselbeck defending their side in opposition to the fairly articulate and issue-educated Goldberg, Behar, and Walters. It's all part of Babs secret plan to take over the world. Clip below.