Forcibly Rape Journalists

I just heard something really interesting on Real Time with Bill Maher. They were discussing the rhetoric coming out of the Middle East (and particularly Iran) and how relations are strained by improper translation. One in particular that they focused on is the phrase "death to." When we hear them chant that, particularly in the context of "Death to America," we read it to mean that their ultimate wish is that we were all dead. In fact, that was one of the primary defenses in our torture of prisoners—they, after all, chant for our deaths!

By my approximation, the phrase "death to," though that is the direct translation, is the Farsi version of the word 'fuck.' Just as we drop the f-bomb fairly comfortably here, they use the phrase all the time there. When Ahmadinejad was handing out potatoes to people as a campaign gimmick, people who didn't support him would reply with "death to potatoes!" The person they interviewed would say it's fairly common if someone loses their car keys to exclaim, "death to my car keys. Where are they?" If someone makes a stupid mistake, they'll very commonly exclaim, "death to myself." In context, taking the saying literally is absolutely ridiculous.

Imagine the direct translation of the F-word. It's horrifying. How would people around the world react to Cheney's response to a barbed question he received from a journalist? "When the Vice President was asked a question critical regarding his associations with Halliburton, he responded casually to the reporter, 'well, I'd have to say, I hope you get forcibly raped very much.'"

I don't imagine people would think we were deserving of much respect either.

Scandal Schmandal

I’m sure you’ve been watching the news and heard about the “protests” against Obama speaking at Notre Dame—their reason being that a pro-choice President should not be giving a commencement address at a Catholic institution. Conservative media spoke from the perspective of how outrageous it is that the university is allowing Obama to speak, despite the cries of their community. Liberal media spoke of how outrageous it is that the community protest our President being able to speak to an educational institution because of their own prejudices. Non-partisan media have made a big deal of just what a big scandal the whole deal is, regardless of the reason. Even the Wikipedia entry for University of Notre Dame has been edited to include the controversy, suggesting that this event is now an integral part of the university’s 160 year history.

What the media haven’t covered is the actual commencement address. When the extreme minority of community in South Bend who did oppose Obama’s commencement address spoke out, a much larger part of the community reacted harshly. When a few people inside the ceremony interrupted the President’s speech with pro-life rhetoric, they were very quickly drowned out by a huge unison chant of “Yes we can, Yes we can,” the rallying cry of Obama supporters. The fact is that the vast majority of students, faculty, and community members seemed to be honored to have the President grace them with his company, and though they haven’t been given the same voice as the protesters, have tried to make it clear that they were proud of their University’s tradition of attracting such influential speakers.

I guess the truth just isn’t as salacious.

Teabagging countdown

Still think news is boring? You don't watch cable:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Next starting at 1:30—

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And, finally:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It is now that we can see the unforeseen consequences of Republicans not going to college. Otherwise, at least one of them would have known what "teabag" means.

They said Obama would turn this country into a liberal haven.

They were right.

Over the weekend, on the heels of talk about nationalizing AIG and Obama's announcement that his top priority this year would be establishing a federal healthcare system, AG Holder indicated that the federal government would be decriminalizing marijuana, leaving enforcement purely to state decision, and Obama made strong statements today that the government would not only lift the ban on stem cell research, but vigorously support any new efforts to utilize the resource.


You heard 'em, America, it's free reign on morality, just like the cons warned us. We'll be stuffing zygotes in our bongs before you know it.

Let the 2012 campaign begin!

Please, please, please let Bobby Jindal be the next Republican Presidential candidate. He’s charismatic, well-spoken, popular, he’s obviously interested in the position, and he is mind-bogglingly out of touch with 80% of the American people in a way that makes perfect sense to the other 20 percent. I think he would seem like the perfect candidate to someone who doesn’t have a damn clue, and he wouldn’t make any effort to appeal to moderate voters like McCain did. It would be an idiotic, classless campaign that no conservative pundit could find any way to criticize, and after they find themselves unable to garner more than 26% of the votes, they’ll give up on our country and, hopefully, leave. Africa’s a big country—they can take up the time-honored tradition of parceling out a section of the Heart of Darkness and giving it to neocons, where they get slaughtered by genocidal heroin-addled warlords.

Ahh, the idea alone puts a calm over me…

Les Entendres

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Portland Represent!

Check it y'all—Portland was represented twice in last night's Countdown:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I couldn't have put it better myself

And, therefore, won't.

Campaigning for Change

The man makes a good point:

Remember in 2000, I was the one who campaigned for change. I campaigned for change when I was running for governor of Texas. The only time I didn’t campaign for change was when I was running for re-election.

–George W. Bush

My final plea

As the election season finally draws to a close, let’s take one last look back at what we have seen.

This election has, in many ways, drawn Americans further apart from each other. Supporters of the conservative movement have been very vocal in their fear and mistrust of their liberal counterparts. Beliefs of liberal supporters, while more subdued in the statements of their opinions, are in many cases no less extreme.

Liberal-leaning Bill Ayers’ questionable history with this country has been well covered. Palin has bluntly referred to him as a terrorist. She has also referred to the pockets of this nation who agreed with her as “the real America,” implying that any part of the country who disagrees with her is fake America. Nancy Pfotenhauer mirrored this sentiment when she referred to “real Virginia.” With her husband the presumptive candidate of the favored party for President, Michelle Obama was finally proud of her country, implying that she had not been for the 26 adult years prior. In response, Michele Bachmann opined that the Obamas could be considered “anti-American.” Some conservatives outright consider Obama himself a terrorist. Frank Schaeffer, of the liberal Huffington Post, has stated in no unclear terms that “McCain is a threat to America.” And finally, Palin invoked the almighty Bill of Rights just this Friday by saying that the First Amendment itself could be in danger if she continues to be criticized for the statements she has made.

But the First Amendment, in fact, is what has made these past months possible. What sets America apart from any country which came before it, and many which have come since, is the foundational basis that who is right or wrong is irrelevant. When a civilization deems one group the authoritative source, any corrosion of that group defiles the entire nation it represents. It doesn’t matter, then, whether McCain really is a threat to America, or where Obama supporters’ patriotism lies. What is important is that all sides express their views and allow the people to decide.

Unfortunately, there are even those who are trying to suppress that allowance. However, both sides have aggressively worked to prevent voter fraud and suppression from rearing their ugly head in any significant way. Efforts like those in Virginia telling Democrats to vote on the 5th, when their ballots will be worthless, have been quickly extinguished. Conservative governor Charlie Crist quickly worked to extend voting hours in Florida, even though all signs indicate that the move benefitted Barack Obama.

So we can all brush aside these ideas of fake or anti-Americans. This election has had a profound effect on many people. At least one quarter of Americans will feel betrayed, ignored, and possibly even rejected by their country this Tuesday. Yet all of this ugliness is symptomatic of what makes this country great: that we are allowed to say what we think, and exercise our Constitutional right to vote based on those thoughts.

The only truly un-American thing to do at this point is to waive that right.

State of Modern Journalism

JOURNALIST: “How can Palin still be the champion of Joe Six-pack when she spent $150,000 on clothes in the last month so that she’d be pretty enough to be electable?
PALIN SPOKESMAN: “Oh, now that’s just taken out of context. See, after we’ve won the election, she’s going to give all those clothes away.”
JOURNALIST: “Oh! Well, that’s just charitable.”

Ed Murrow is rolling in his grave.

Now we know

Of all the goofy post-debate polls, there were two which I think were the most telling: 28 percent who thought that McCain won the debate, and 28 percent who said that Ayers mattered “a great deal” in their decision. I think it’s clearly obvious that the Ayers thing is absolutely ludicrous to anyone who has a thought in their head. The only people who would say it mattered to them would be obedient neocon loyalists. They would also be the only people to say that McCain made any sense at all in the debate last night (I’m really not sure what’s happened to him; he appears to have been brainwashed). He was an absolute buffoon who made no sense and was unable to respond to anything Obama said. He was very temperamental and outright rude, and in a roundabout way said he was proud of the people at his rally who were calling out to kill Obama. So we can now determine the exact percentage of people who are blindly following McCain to the ends of the Earth: 28%. Now the question is what exactly the other 14% who have said they’ll vote for him are thinking.

How I will win the presidency

When I run for President in, oh, I don't know, 2024, I can tell you exactly how I will win the presidency, in two sentences. I will first give you a guarantee that the tactic will not be tried before then, it will not be proposed by a single advisor, and not only will the press find it brilliant but the people will be drawn to me and will vote for me in drove for this tactic alone. My opponent will call it a brazen parlor trick, and he will lose.

I will hold rallies and town hall meetings with my party. In addition, I will hold public town hall meetings, very loosely organized (think a college Q&A), where the people invited will be my opponents constituency.

That's all there is to it. Endure their tirades for an hour, reply when I deem it necessary, and I guarantee you that a sufficient number of them will say to themselves, "I may not agree with him, but he's listening to us." It will work.

See you in 2024.

The seed has been planted for the second civil war

You may know about Rob Ayers. Ayers is a Chicago activist who Obama worked with in his early years as a state senator, in an effort to get charitable funding for a philanthropic effort. When Obama ran for President, someone dug up that Ayers was associated with a radical militia group in the 60's and was arrested at one point for a conspired bombing. When Obama found out about this, he disavowed Ayers and reassured everyone that he was only involved with Ayers on the most superficial level. It came up once during a primary debate, and all the candidates agreed it was a non-issue.

Well, Palin found out about it this morning. There was a New York Times article chronicling some of Obama's obstacles in the campaign, and it mentioned Ayers. That morning, Palin made a speech to a group of supporters. Here is her exact words: "This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America. We see America as the greatest force for good in this world... Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

She then made the reference two more times in just one day, each time using the phrase "palling around with terrorists."

Now, aside from that comment making absolutely no sense, and is a ridiculous leap to say that because Obama knows someone who was a domestic terrorist that he thinks America is not a force for good, here is what she actually read: "Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama, who together served on education boards in Chicago years ago... A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.'"

The New York Times, along with AP, immediately launched a response to Palin, stating that her accusation was deliberately misleading, and that The New York Times took great care not to say he was palling around with Ayers, quite on the contrary, and there was absolutely no reason why Obama would have known Ayers' past, which makes the statement that Obama was involved with Ayers because Ayers was a terrorist completely absurd.

Palin was asked for response. Her statement: "The Associated Press is wrong."

The McCain campaign has already produced a TV ad around Ayers and released it to the TV stations to air in a few weeks. The campaign manager has defended the move and Palin's statements.

What a fucking cunt

Palin said today that the reason why she sounded like such an idiot with the Couric interviews is because Couric wasn't asking the questions she was prepared to answer. I guess when you only talk to Fox News, you actually believe that's what journalists do? What a twat. And to rise to the level of this dumb whore actually offending me, she actually tries turning it around on Katie Couric, saying that it just showed she was "outside the media elite," so she doesn't know how to respond to those hoity-toity news people who know... stuff. So if you came away thinking that Katie Couric is more suited to being President than some random Alaskan bimbo beauty queen, you must be one of those "elitists" who think that the leader of our country is supposed to know something. Anything. Like, more than one Supreme Court case (since she'd be choosing the judges). At least one news magazine (since the executive branch's main role is to be the reactionary branch). One instance of ever having done anything of value to... oh, fuck it. Anyone who doesn't believe by now that this bitch should never be allowed to leave Wassila unless she's wearing a bicycle helmet should go live in a fucking igloo and hunt moose, and give us back our country instead of running it in to the fucking ground. The U.S. is becoming the next Phonecia. Where's Phonecia, you ask? Exactly.

I'm sorry, is it sexist to use every derogatory feminine term I could think of in this rant? I'm just defending Katie Couric, a poor, defenseless woman who is being heartlessly attacked by a mysogenist yokel hockey moose-hunting neo-Christian retard. See I can say gender-neutral things about her, too.

Thoughts on the Debate

Well, we were right on the media appraisal of the debate. They were very impressed that Palin made it ninety minutes without peeing herself. But I could only find one article that even mildly suggested that Palin was in any way worthy to share the stage with Biden, with the following sentence:

"Biden was expected to score. Palin looked like a teacher who had won a contest to debate a senator, and for a moment, was winning."

Impressive. In other words, She was very cute and very impressive trying to be a real politician, but she didn't have anyone fooled for a minute. There were also a lot of people saying that while everyone was paying attention to whether Palin would make a fool of herself, but managed to give a respectable appearance by completely ignoring anything the moderator said and obediently sticking to the talking points she spent all week memorizing, a lot of the real political woks were watching Biden just intently to see if he would make his trademark gaffs. Instead, he ended up looking like the most presidential person to take the stage thus far, including McCain and Obama. He was respectful, passionate, consistent, honest, aggressive, succinct (whaaaaa...?), and most of all, right. 

The media are trying desperately to show both sides of the issue, but the fact is, Obama's campaign was helped greatly by the VP debate, and while Palin didn't hurt McCain's campaign (not right away, we'll see what they say in a couple days after watching it and analyzing it), she definitely didn't help it. I don't think anyone... ANYONE... is even considering McCain a contender anymore. They're just being polite to the old war hero and the nice hockey mom for trying, and giving them a "participant" ribbon and a pat on the back.

Can you tell the difference?

I saw an interview last week, and I thought it was a rerun, because it looked so familiar. Then today I put my finger on it. Can you tell the difference between these two interviews? I sure can't:

Those who support Palin

The following is an actual online conversation between me and someone online. This is in response to Charlie Gibson asking Palin about the Bush Doctrine, which Palin had never heard of. WARNING: Graphic language, read with care. I started this blog as a place to be as crude as possible, but even I find this content offensive.

Charles Gibson is the dumbass here she knows what the bush doctrine is she just told him

My response: the Bush Doctrine is an actual specific mandate, similar in procedure to the Emancipation Proclamation. It's a historical item. It's not Palin's opinion of what Bush does. Think of it this way: if you hit someone with a car, even as an accident, would you hire a lawyer who had never heard of vehicular manslaughter? If you are in a country which is at war, would you want a Vice President who has never heard of the statute we wrote as our reason to go to war?

Give it up. You have no dam idea what you are babbling about.

My response: Why would I give up if I could learn something from you? The Bush Doctrine (capital letters) has been in political conversations since 2003 referring to the official justification for the Iraq war, why a preemptive strike was justified. A doctrine (lower case) can refer to a general opinion, but Charlie Gibson here was clearly talking about The Bush Doctrine. Which part of that am I misunderstanding?

And he goes straight to this well-thought response:

You're a nigger faggot. Ever notice how it is the high school and coolege aged kids that hate on Palin? It is also the welfare niggers, gays/lesbians, neo/socialists, drug addicts. Thats the voting base Obama has.

This is the mindset we're up against, folks.

One thing I can say about Palin

She's getting people to care about politics. Especially women. Never mind all the polls, I'm talking about people I know in real life. People like the women in my family, friends at work, people who I know on a purely professional basis who are saying to me, "I know we're not supposed to discuss politics at work, but what's up with this Palin character?"

People whom I've never known to care about politics have suddenly grown a fire in them of sheer, unadulterated hatred. People who, even with Bush, have said "you know, I'd rather just not think about it." Suddenly I'm getting emails from aunts and distant friends, passing on things they've read about her, warnings and revealing facts about Palin's ruthless neo-con history. My lunch buddy getting all red in the face because his grandmother in Wisconsin is supporting the McCain-Palin ticket.

For several reasons, I believe the polls are wrong, and in some cases, intentionally misleading. A result of the pulls saying that the race is deadlocked is absolute panic and fear from people that McCain could be elected, and Palin with him. She is a true enemy. My father, a war veteran and himself an American politician, has started talking about leaving the country if they win. If those polls are true, and McCain somehow wins this one, people will not just be depressed for a couple weeks over the loss. There will be war, civil disobedience, people on the streets.