Hey Hillbuzz, Is It Too Late To Enter This In The Photoshop Sarah Palin In The Oval Office Contest?

Conservative trigger warning: this post is rated four out of a possible six conservative 'splodey heads.

~~~~

Oh Harvey Bilk, do you have to hang em' right over the plate like this?

 You might as well be a pitcher for the Cubs:

American Thinker: Barack Obama Is Just Like A Killer Whale In So Many Ways!

It was so obvious, it was just staring the country in the face, but it took the intermittently firing neurons of Jeannie deAngelis at American Thinker to formulate and give vent to just what everyone's been thinking:

Barack Obama is an out-of-control Monster Orca, and regrettably, now we all know it:

Pictures of Dawn Brancheau balancing triumphantly on Shamu's snout are reminiscent of Obama supporters in "joyful harmony" with the new president following the last election.

The similarities are so numerous, and so tragic: two beasts, seemingly friendly as long as they're caressed, but hiding their true agendas behind toothy smiles and false diffidence. What is their true desire? To drag us down, down, down, till we can struggle no more!

Like Brancheau stroking Tilly's nose, a sycophantic electorate massaged Obama's ego. One year later, Democrats constrained by faltering poll numbers appear "agitated." Why? Because America stopped feeding and rubbing Barry's political proboscis, and now the star of the show's belligerent, temperamental comments are manifesting more and more frequently.

Yes, it was a horrible presumption on the part of the public that a beast like Barack Obama could ever be happy in such an unnatural environment as the presidency:

captive killer whales have been known to attack handlers," which explains why Democrats, confined by the majority's criticism of liberal political ideology, produce stress reactions, causing "smart animals" like Obama to "lash out."

Truly, for the sakes not just of all of us, but for his sake, too, let us join Jeannie and all the American Thinkers to demand that Barack Obama be released back into the wild.

Free Barry! Free Barry!
He is way too much like a killer whale!

brought to you by Snarkopolitan, the undead barracuda of blogs, and cross-posted at rumproast, America's Meatiest Blog. Covering some of the folly but not all, because we are only one person, and we have a job!

Mr. President, Could We Get A Clean Blindfold Here, Please?

American justice was never unstained, but until the Bush administration, she still had some semblance of virtue. Then came eight years of increasing surrealism, degradation, and downright atrocities. Some of us had thought that the new president would pull American Justice out of the muck and help her clean some of the mud off her chiton. Well, she's still not standing upright, and may never be.


Binyam Mohammed's case is by turns infuriating, heartbreaking, and peculiar. The Ethiopian-born British resident was first arrested in Pakistan on a visa violation in 2002. He was sent to be tortured in Pakistan, Morocco, and Guantanamo, where he has been held since 2004. His nightmarish journey took him through such "black sites" as the "Dark Prison", where he was kept chained to a wall in total darkness, while tapes of rap music and screaming were played at ear-splitting volume 24 hours a day, and other prisoners could be heard going mad.


From what battlefield was Mohammed taken? What desparate acts of violence had he committed, to necessitate his Extraordinary Rendition?



According to his military-appointed counsel, Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Bradley, he was taken from the Karachi airport, where he was waiting to board a plane to the U.K. And the act that got him arrested? Visiting a satiric website and viewing an article by Barbara Ehrenriech, Peter Biskind, and scientist Michio Kaku, that gave obviously joking instructions on how to build an H-Bomb. These included putting liquid uranium in a bucket, swinging it overhead for 45 minutes, skimming the results like cream, and keeping buckets of uranium in separate corners of the room, lest they reach critical mass.


Mohammed confessed to reading this article after a week of hanging by his wrists. It was the centerpiece of the government case that he was trying to build a dirty bomb. He was also connected to Jose Padilla and three other defendants, by Abu Zubaydah, who later said he lied under torture. Zubaydah is one of the Guantanamo prisoners the CIA has admitted waterboarding.



Charges against Mohammed were nullified when the Supreme Court struck down the first Military Commissions act. Additionally, his prosecutor, Lt. Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, resigned for reasons of conscience, stating that "the U.S. government was not providing defense lawyers with the evidence it had against their clients, including exculpatory information – material considered helpful to the defense." He was the fourth prosecutor to resign. Though there was a chance that the government might retry Mohammed under the new Military Commissions Act, the problem remains that the use of torture has tainted the statements made by and against him, as it has tainted many other cases.



Binyam Mohammed is still at Guantanamo, even though charges against him have been dropped. He is therefore on hunger-strike in protest, and being force-fed twice a day, an abusive act in itself. His military counsel, Colonel Bradley, met with UK Foreign Secretary David Milliband about Mohammed's imminent release.



Separate from the sub-rosa miseries inflicted on him by the American legal system, Mohammed has a new reason to disbelieve in American justice: the State Secrets Act. Is Mohammed suing the United States for kidnapping and mutilating him? No. He is suing the airline company that transported him to be tortured, a subsidiary of Boeing called Jeppesen Dataplan. The United States Justice Department, under George W. Bush, stepped in to get the lawsuit thrown out, on the grounds that state secrets would be revealed in the course of the case, jeopardizing national security. Rather than redacting names and locations, rather than allowing the judge to view and rule on the sensitive material, the Bush Department of Justice sought to have the entire suit never see the light of day.

It doesn't take much imagination to realize that the invoking the State Secrets act allows any program to remain unexamined under the rubric of national security.
As Glenn Greenwald notes in Salon:
"the alternative to Bush's lawsuit-killing use of the privilege is not to waive the privilege entirely. Everyone -- including the ACLU -- acknowledges that the Government should have the right to assert the State Secrets privilege on a document-by-document basis. The controversy was and is only about one thing: the use of the privilege to compel the dismissal of entire lawsuits in advance -- in other words, to convert the State Secrets privilege from what it always was (a focused evidentiary privilege) to what it was never intended to be (full-scale immunity for government lawbreakers from all judicial accountability)."

So Monday, all parties--Boing, DOJ lawyers, and lawyers for Binyam Mohammed, met once again in court. The judge overseeing the case asked lawyers from the brand-new Obama Department of Justice, expectantly, almost winking, whether "anything had changed?" since the last time they had been at court. When they replied in the negative, she was incredulous. Did they want to continue the Bush policy of invoking State Secrets to get Mohammed's lawsuit dismissed?

Yes they did. Nothing had changed. Nothing at all. Not for Binyam Mohammed.

There is no doubt there are indeed changes in policy from the brutally stupid Bush administration to the Obama administration. President Obama has ordered holds and reviews on all cases being prosecuted against the prisoners at Guantanamo, and the new Attorney General has stated unequivocally that waterboarding is torture, and that torture will no longer be tolerated. The administration is also very new, and negotiating the twists, turns, divided loyalties and delicate politics that any new leadership must confront. Perhaps, as some defenders, or optimists, or apologists, suggest, Obama can't decree massive change all at once, and will incrementally right the many wrongs, even prosecute the wrongdoers.

But to deny kidnapped, tortured, Binyam Mohammed his lawsuit is one injustice, one towering injustice, that will be committed in Obama's name, right now. Is it worth it to him to have this indelible stain on his name, to protect the names of Bush administration officials, in the interest of "looking forward?"

Cross-posted at Rumproast.

A FIELD GUIDE TO FRAIDY CATSwe can handle anything except criticism. or scrutiny. or questions. or dissent. or disappointment. or logic. or rationality. or independence. or information. or research. or reality. or the time/space continuum. or
When I tell friends that I've been PUMAwatching, they say, "Cats? Shoes? What are you talking about?" and I have to remind them about PUMA, or Party Unity My Ass, that noble organization founded on resentment of Hillary Clinton's supposed maltreatment by the Dems and encouraged delightedly by McCain operatives pinching themselves that so many of Hillary's followers could be so easily manipulated.

Since PUMA managed to convince itself and the McCain campaign that it ROARED with eighteen million voices, it led McCain to pick the Alaskan Albatross that ultimately sank him, so I am grateful to PUMA on that score. In fact, PUMA roars with just about enough voices to keep the comment sections of a few dozen blogs populated, assuming each commenter posts multiple times and visits more than one blog a night.

The election proved that PUMApower in fact ROARED with enough hot air to blow up the forty or so orange PUMAballoons at any of PUMA's underpopulated rallies, but not much more than that. Hillary Clinton's debt was not retired with the help of PUMAdollars, or even affected, and Hillary went on to blow PUMA's minds by getting over her disappointment and moving on with her life, worst of all by working with HIM.

Born out of frustration, inability to accept opposition, and sheer will to destruction, having failed to obtain the nomination or to throw the election, now PUMA exists to promote hatred of HIM. That one. A veneer of faux feminism encrusts PUMA, many of whose members seem to be reinventing the feminist wheel, circa 1972: "I thought the ERA had passed!" said one.

But PUMA blithely exchanged Hillary's feminist values for those of John McCain, who opposed equal pay for equal work, voted to impeach Hillary's husband, happily told rape jokes, verbally abused his wife ("at least I don't slather on the makeup like a trollop, you c**t") and disparaged young Chelsea's looks. They went as well for anti-intellectual mannequin and Republican frozen cheesecake Sarah Palin as if the indifferent scholar and neo-con pinup were a reasonable substitute for detail-oriented Ivy-League magna-cum-laude policy wonk Hillary, thereby endorsing the idea that genitalia trumps everything, from ideology to policy.

Irony is lost on PUMA.

PUMAs are currently congratulating themselves for the dubious distinction of being chosen as Time's eighth-hottest buzzword of the year, right in between "tweet" and "rick-rolled"*. The eighth-hottest buzzword of last year, BACN, has of course gone on to dominate conversation at watercoolers nationwide ever since, so the fly-about-to-be-encased-in-resin elegaic quality of the eighth-hottest buzzword designation shouldn't worry PUMA at all.

Why even pay attention to this group if the country no longer does? Why bother if it is so laughably ineffective? Why bother with PUMA instead of leaving them to their own devices in their insular PUMASPHERE?

Because PUMA seems to have the beginnings of a classic hate-group, and needs to be watched.

The FBI classifies hate-group formation as happening in 7 stages:

Stage 1: The Haters Gather

"Irrational haters seldom hate alone. They feel compelled, almost driven, to
entreat others to hate as they do. Peer validation bolsters a sense of
self-worth and, at the same time, prevents introspection, which reveals personal
insecurities. Further, individuals otherwise ineffective become empowered when
they join groups, which also provide anonymity and diminished accountability.

Evident on PUMA threads is the constant one-upwomanship of trying to come up with newer better stronger insults for Obama and anyone who supports him.. PUMA pets and indulges the most extreme of its Obama-haters, Jenniforhillary, admiring her for her "spirit". Only once has any PUMA ever challenged her, and that was on whether her attack on Al Franken was merited, not on the legitimacy of wishing slow painful castration on him per se. And, as per usual, nobody else protested.

Stage 2: The Hate Group Defines Itself

Hate groups form identities through symbols, rituals, and mythologies, which
enhance the members' status and at the same time, degrade the object of their
hate."

PUMA adopted the hapless big cat as their superkewl icon, and from there followed a flood of neat images of pawprints, demonstrations and spamming parties known as "prowls", and the PUMA war-cry, PUMA HAKA! (a HAKA is a Maori war chant) And RRRoarrrrsss. There is much of the junior college sorority in this, and would not be alarming if PUMA left it there. Even if there are slightly psychotic overtones in their belief that Hillary was wearing an orange pantsuit at her convention speech as a secret message of PUMAdarity with them.

PUMA mythologies are so extensive and evolve so much that it's impossible to follow them, much less refute them systematically, starting immediately with PUMA's creation myth: that Hillary was cheated out of the nomination because she was a woman.

PUMAs embrace anyone who offers anti-Obama mythology; the most notorious may be noted anti-Semite Andy Martin, originator of the Obama-is-a-Muslim myth. Martin attended the PUMA convention in Washington and is seen in PUMA's pictures shooting the breeze with assorted Pumas. Andy Martin, Lyndon LaRouche follower Webster Tarpley, and Andy Berg, all have the PUMA welcome mat put out for their theories about Obama's nationality (he's a Kenyan/British/American/unAmerican Usurper. "Did you know that if Obama reads a national security document it's treason?" asked a PUMA on PUMAPAC.

Stage 3: The Hate Group Disparages the Target

"Hate is the glue that binds haters to one another and to a common cause. By
verbally debasing the object of their hate, haters enhance their self-image, as
well as their group status."

PUMA shows its stress lines when the subject veers off Obama. Even Hillary-worship doesn't hold up reliably any more since Hillary consented to campaign for Obama, much less work for him as Secretary of State. The gulfs between atheist/lesbian/pro-choice PUMAs, Catholic pro-life PUMAs, Conservative PUMAs and lifelong Democratic PUMAs become noticeable, and though PUMAs have never reproved each other for the bleak and gorey scenarios they like to envision being visited on their enemies (Obama, Obots, and nonPUMA men), they do have hissing contests over whether a PUMA has disrespected other PUMAs' beliefs. This frequently results in a theatrical, and sometimes permanent, exit.

Puma blog postings frequently begin with a "feminist" subject. Sometimes they will start out highlighting a figure from women's history, which seems a valuable enough effort. But the veneer of feminism inevitably melts away where all roads lead to the One, or rather, disparagement of the One. The "feminist" post is often simply an incitement to outrage over yet another example of the very real misogyny and ill-treatment of women the world over. The trouble here is the focus of the outrage: it isn't focussed on the perpetrators, it's spread to whomever the PUMAs wish to be angry at (More on this further down, with the John Favreau debacle). And more than anything else, PUMAs wish to be angry at Obama.

A visit to PUMA sites will net many new terms of abuse for Barack Obama that you may never have heard applied to any presidential candidate before, even though terms of abuse for presidential candidates are a cherished American art form. At main Puma site Pumapac.org , you'd encounter the following:

NOBAMA
Obie
Obambi
teh precious’
Obamatrons
The Cheetos
Obots
Barry
backtrack
Barky Barry Von Cash
the O-Borg
No
count Fraud Ojambo
Ofart
ohonewhothinksheisking
Baruk the Crook, the
fraud President elect,
Baruk the Cruk
Barock the Crock
NewOrleansPuma 11.30.08 at 3:14 pm
Baseek the Sheik
Pres
Omigodicantbelieveitsnotbutter’
Oslime-o
Ojingo
emptysuited
hypocritical lying thievin’ flim flam gutter rat
Nobie
Oblobit
baracobambi
oblah blah
Obummee

This is a short list. Notice that some of the names are frankly racist and xenophobic: "Ojingo", "Ojambo", "Baseek the Shiek". That's a dirty little PUMA non-secret: assorted flavors of racism, from the vague racist overtones of comments such as:

Nijma 01.03.09 at 2:41 am

mountainsong, yeah, chicago; if the bots get rambunctious, there’ll be plenty of
prowling to do, but if they behave, things can stay quiet.
If Teh One
enacts our agenda and stops dissing women, our reason for living will be
gone and we can go to the dance club all week long. On the other hand,
if it’s all bit*hes and ho*s and Ludicris, and no jobs for
women, we’ll have a
lot of free time to blog, and no money for cover charges

to frank, overt racism such as this picture of Obama as a lawn jockey in front of the White House, excused by the caption,"Why is this not okay?" The supposed reason for photoshopping Obama around as a shoeshine boy is that Jon Favreau, a young speechwriter of his was photographed with his hand cupping the non-existent breast of a cardboard Hillary. Incensed, PUMA immediately struck back by demanding Favreau be summarily fired, gustily predicting he was on the road to real sexual criminality, and posting demeaning pictures of innocent women photoshopped onto Hillary's cardboard body, so that the speechwriter was then molesting Donna Brazile and Michelle Obama. That's the kind of thinking that got PUMA where it is today.

Where PUMA is today is a splenetic organization that tolerates, indulges, even encourages hatefulness as long as it's directed toward Obama and Obama supporters, whom PUMA pictures as glassy-eyed kids and wild-eyed socialists referred to as "Obots". They do not admit the possibility that adult people not very much different from them could rationally decide not to hate Obama as they do, so they turn Obama's followers into non-human "bots".

Stage 4: The Hate Group Taunts the Target

"Hate, by its nature, changes incrementally. Time cools the fire of hate, thus
forcing the hater to look inward. To avoid introspection, haters use
ever-increasing degrees of rhetoric and violence to maintain high levels of
agitation. Taunts and offensive gestures serve this purpose."

This stage must necessarily have changed since this paper was published in 2003 because of the increased prevalence of the Internet. Whereas hate groups who used to long for contact with "the other" to express their hatred had to go out looking for them, now it is possible to find all the enemies they could ever want online.

PUMAs see themselves as wounded, martyred, woman warriors, but they are not likely to follow this model beyond step 4 into physicality, although some observers at the notorious Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting had their doubts.

They do constantly increase the rhetoric and outrage: Murphy of PUMAPAC posts ever more terrible news items about attacks on female victims, which keeps her blog followers in a permanent state of foam-flecked spitting fury. She frequently uses these posts to drive the PUMAs into donating to PUMAPAC, although PUMAPAC's accounting practices are a little hazy.

Here is one of PUMAPAC's most active members, Jenniforhillary, on her hope for the country under Obama:

jenniforhillary 11.08.08 at 8:49 am
I am in a economy proof business, my
parents have money, and I will NOT SUFFER. We have one year of food PLUS, we
have our gardens, we have our weapons, our bullets, our network. We are
prepared.
That being said, I CANNOT WAIT for the suffering to begin. I
hope there is starvation, I hope there is rioting, and i hope that there
is massive death…

Heartwarming. Jennifer is indeed in a recession-proof business: her mother's estate-clearance company. Massive death certainly wouldn't hurt Mom's balance sheet. Of course, after Jennifer dropped that one in the PUMA punch-bowl, did that spoil it for the rest of the PUMAs? Anyone care to challenge Jennifer on her cheery PUMIHILISM? No? Of course not. One PUMA responded,

GBPuma 11.08.08 at 10:03 am
jenniforhillary 11.08.08 at 8:49 am
I agree 150%…….they have no concept of
the suffering they have created and they
deserve everything they are about to
get

Jenniforhillary (or Jennifer X, as she sometimes calls herself now that Hillary has lost the way to the Light) is not a fringe member, but actually hosted one of the most unintentionally hilarious radio hours ever to go out to bewildered listeners of public radio station KPFT. On the phone for the entire hour with Jennifer X was PUMAPAC founder Darragh Murphy, who listened calmly and approvingly as Jennifer shouted over and dumped callers who tried to challenge any of her PUMAganda. The two PUMAs thought the show had gone swimmingly and Jennifer was much praised on PUMAPAC for her facility in Obot-wrassling. They were surprised to learn that KPFT did not feel quite as enthusiastic about a regular PUMA hour as they did.

The inability to tolerate dissent demonstrated by the PUMAGANDA flaming dirigible of a radio show is completely in keeping with the PUMAs' policies on their blogs: absolute censorship of opposing views. On both the Confluence and PUMAPAC, only pro-PUMA comments are allowed. "Riverdaughter", the founder of the Confluence, offered the explanation that it isn't censorship when she does it because only governments can censor, although that isn't what the American Heritage Dictionary says (any person "vested with authority" can be a censor as, say, the administrator of a blog).


This is what makes the Confluence's Weblog nomination as Best Liberal Blog something of a farce; as a big L blog, exhorting followers to vote for the Republican ticket is just plain not Liberal, and as a small l blog, what is more illiberal than the closemindedness of censoring comments? Riverdaughter's The Confluence is more egregious in this than even PUMAPAC; one of their bloggers, the not awfully gracious myiq2xu, loves to "edit" comments he doesn't like and republish them:

Mountainaires, on January 1st, 2009 at 2:28
pm Said:
To Riverdaughter and myiq2xu who responded to my comment
previously.
myiq2xu: if you are the "moderator" who went in and edited the
quotes from Richard Falk, then you deserve to be insulted for doing it. Before
you start changing quotes, you ought to know what you’re talking about, which
you clearly did not. There were no food or medical supplies being transported
into Gaza at the point of my comment, and your insertions were inaccurate. You
could have posted your own comment responding to mine, and posted your
inaccuracies under your own name. Instead, you hid like a coward behind a power
title of "moderator" and altered my comments. Shame on you.
Next time please
post your own comment in reply to mine if you don’t like my opinion. Stop going
in and altering a comment which has my name on it."

One of the rare PUMen, myiq2 has an agenda of his own: Here he is talking about PUMAs on the blog Balloon Juice:

myiq2xu March 14th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
...
What is Hillary’s core
constituency? Women.
Older, yet “liberated” women.
At 47 years old, I am a
“boy toy.”
Since they are post-menopausal, that means they don’t swell, they
don’t tell, and they’re grateful as
hell.--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
myiq2xu March 14th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
...
Go to a rally where you are
one of the few guys (and the only single guy under 50) and there are about 100
unattached women. Okay, lots of them are widows, but it’s still good for a
person’s self-esteem.
Honestly, I’ve never had women fight over me
before.--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
myiq2xu March 15th, 2008 at 12:01
...
I was trying to help you get a
“coming out” present.
No STFU before you mess things up. I think the redhead
puts out.
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
myiq2xu March 15th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Rodney Carrington Live at the
Majestic is on the Comedy Channel.
“I went home with a fat girl once a bunch
of times.”http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=9901

(Hat tip: Yes To Democracy)

PUMA laughs off Myiq2's jokey misogyny, but sexism is fine as long as it emanates from PUMA. http://pumapac.org/2008/12/10/does-estrogen-poisoning-make-us-more-ethical-and-less-violent/ So are violent fantasies, as long as they are about violence against men (you may want to skip the next few paragraphs; they're quite ugly):

"murphy 12.11.08 at 12:54 am "One in nine men will be arrested for a violent
crime. Half of those violent crimes will be assault with a weapon, rape, or
robbery. Numbers dont lie. The answer is Decimation."

And, from the immortal Jennifer X:

"AL FRANKEN should have his pencil penis removed sans pain medicine and left to
bleed to death (does that say enough)…."

Yes, that does just about say enough, Jennifer.


Stage 5: The Hate Group Attacks the Target Without Weapons

" This stage is critical because it differentiates vocally abusive haters from
physically abusive ones. In this stage, hate groups become more aggressive,
prowling their turf seeking vulnerable targets..."

It is at this stage that the FBI separates the sheep from the goats: hate groups who do not progress to violence are assessed as "immature" hate groups. This model was drawn up primarily to assess skinhead groups, and I should make clear that I certainly do not regard PUMA as akin to skinhead groups, focussed as PUMA is on hating one distant and well-protected man, and satisfied as PUMAs are with blogging their hatred.

But PUMA still has disturbing similarities to groups going through the stages described by the FBI, including the psychological underpinnings.


Stages Six and Seven, respectively, are attacking the Target with weapons, and destroying the Target.

Although PUMAs don't back away from expressing violent fantasies about those whom they view as their oppressors, they assume it is understood that these are just fantasies. What is alarming is the tolerance for some PUMAs, like JenniforHillary, who seem to be spinning out of control without any kind of check. Rather than talking her down, PUMAPAC consistently feeds her hysteria, paranoia and despair and sits back applauding the show. While PUMAs are hardly likely to resort to skinhead-style battles on the street, there are individuals in the PUMAsphere who are clearly psychologically disturbed, such as Jenniforhillary. While PUMA is applauding itself for its womanly lack of physical brutality, they might do well to remember there have been female Presidential would-be assassins in recent memory, such as Squeaky Fromme.


Murphy and Riverdaughter are playing a dangerous game; playing on the fears and wounded psyches of women scattered across the country, trolling in fringe right-wing websites for bad news to keep the glue of Obama-hate bonding their followers to them. They may themselves be convinced that it is feminism and empowerment that they're spreading, but what they are actually doing is imitating the negative stereotype of feminists as overprivileged, humorless, castrating loons.

*Tired of Rick Astley. My Rick doesn't roll that way.

2009: SUCH POSSIBLITIES!

if you have the florins, we have the fauna

I hereby resolve to post here more often.The last time I wrote, we still had a private banking system and what was good for General Motors was good for the nation. And Obama hadn't yet become a failed usurper-elect, after whom we could name the cardboard shantytowns springing up in Central Park. Darn his do-nothing policy of not taking office! But shall we call them "Obamavilles" or "Barackbergs"? http://thehive.modbee.com/?q=node/10964

VOTEVOTEVOTEVOTE

At 6:40 A.M., less than five blocks from Ground Zero, I voted for Barack Obama for President of the United States. Barack Hussein Obama, who, while he will make mistakes, will never make them out of carelessness, lack of inquiry, pique, or false bravado.

And that's why I trust him with my safety, living less than five blocks from Ground Zero.

Let this horrible screaming downward spiral be ended at last. And yes, voting for the first African-American President, as all outward signs indicate he will be, was a momentous, gigantic, glorious thrill. There were so many reasons to vote for him, and reasons to vote against the poor shell of a man that used to be John McCain, but above all, to have a President who falls within the reasonable bounds of human decency after eight years (and perhaps a little more), that is most gratifying of all.

Madelyn Dunham

1922-2008

An Overflowing Cup of Joe

Unlicensed plumbing contractor and McCain Foreign Policy Advisor Joe the Plumber was opining again on the danger of Obama: would an Obama presidency be the death of Israel? "I'll have to go along with that," said Joe, who did, to be fair, caution people to make up their own minds and not just base their decisions on his seconds and seconds of intensive reflection.
He was okay with himself even after Shepherd Smith of Fox (!) gave him every chance to back away from his cheerful, unmalicious, unthinking, devastating slander of a major public figure.

He has happily embraced the same media that McCain and Palin have been demonizing, finding the "media filter" suits him fine. He always has a word or two for whatever microphone sticks its tempting self under his nose. He was a familiar caller to right-wing talk shows in the area.

Joe used Barack Obama for his chance at the Big Time, and it worked. He saw Obama in his neighborhood, made his way through the crowd and asked a set-up question, since the answer was supposed to make Obama look bad and didn't actually apply to Joe. Now, McCain is using Joe and Joe is using McCain. Joe's PUBLICIST is angling for a book deal and a RECORD CONTRACT.

Everybody was using everybody except Obama, who simply tried to answer the guy's question seriously, and ironically will end up cutting Joe's taxes. Obama was nice to Joe, who is too full of himself and his own opinions to absorb any outside information.The glory of this incredible year: just when you think they've hit a new low, they dig down and come up with a lower low. From Sarah the winking Serial Liar to Joe the Singing Unlicensed Plumber.

ALERT! JUST IN-A FEW FUN FICTS FROM THE MAVERICK

Fun, because they are fictional facts, so lets jump in on the neologism-coining craze and call them FICTS. These are courtesy of intrepid newshound Larry King at CNN, the Network that Said NO to Obama's paid infomercial, and replaced it with a free infomercial for McCain: John Sidney McCain III is from humble beginnings. Although he is the son and grandson of admirals, flew and crashed one airplane after another, fortunately not onto the airfield that bears his own name, and was admitted to elite schools and programs on the strength of his last name, intrepid newshound Larry King managed to worm out of him that he came from humble beginnings. There's a scoop for you.

Another scoop is his plan for the economy: he's going to grow it. And there you have it, my friends, the detail you 've been craving that Obama's afraid to give: John McCain will GROW the economy right out of this mess.

Thank You, and Good Night.

Oh, you want more? Okay.

He will give tax cuts just like Reagan did, and that will grow the economy. Intrepid newshound Larry King did not point out that Reagan left the economy wobbling around carrying the biggest honking deficit it ever had to heft, or that Reagan didn't come in looking at a deficit there aren't enough zeroes in cyberspace to express.

The third and final scoop of the evening: he's delighted with Sarah Palin's maverickiness, and whenever she's around, he finds her presence uplifting. Oh, there are a lot of comedians who are grateful to him just for that last sentence. She's going to drag him up to ANWAR and show him how she dresses those meese.

That's more than enough scoops from McCain for one night. Apologies to Stephen Colbert, whose concept "truthiness" has had every damn body on the Internet trying to come up with a better neologism. There is no better neologism, but "Ficts" fills a needed gap, I think; while truthy things seem like they ought to be true, Ficts are obviously truth-challenged, if not truth-deprived, and depend on the kindness of strangers (like intrepid newshound Larry King) not to challenge their existence.

Dangerously Stupid Minds

Mrs. Polly Foils a Plot?

"Secret Service," the young man said. "Look, it's a comment on the Internet, I want to make it clear," I said. "But someone on the Huffingtonpost just made a threat against Obama."

I was on the phone with the New York Field Office of the Secret Service on Sunday. They pick up on the first ring, BTW, even though this is their busy season. Of course, should Obama win, the next eight years will be their busy season.

The Huffingtonpost is a one-stop-shop for every kind of Freeping, wingeing, blustering, petty, juvenile, gleeful trolling that its mostly liberal articles can inspire. Regulars needle each other joyfully, like the old guys in the back of a coffee shop, and interlopers set off cascades of derogatory comments. The stories on Huffingtonpost are given provocative titles designed to set adrenaline flowing into the good red bloodstreams of its viewers, and the comments on the stories frequently overwhelm each other, streaming in with such force that it's useless to try to keep up.

This commenter, though, was new. And he minced no words about what he wanted to do to the Obamas. Both of them. And with what weapons. When he was dumped off the site under one name, he came back, newly registered as something else, saying, "Think you can get rid of me that easily?"

That's when I looked up the Secret Service. I posted on Huffington that I was calling them, figuring that the commenter could be found even if he immediately stopped commenting. It's not like the telephone; you can't just hang up.

All that FISA spying ought to be good for something!

The young man heard me out, and said, "I'll have Intelligence call you back." Which they did, immediately. I told "Paul" about the comment(s), which was difficult since I don't use the "N" word, or the other ones--- when and where it occurred, and he and I both went to the Huffington Post to find the comment.

FLASH: the Secret Service doesn't spend a lot of time on the Huffington Post. "I've never been to this site before," said "Paul", sounding perplexed by the assortment of screaming headlines, multitude of categories, and the ever-flowing stream of comments. It took some time to find the Commenter, partially because my computer is agonizingly slow, partially because clicking within certain sections of the Huffington Post will send you off to the far reaches of the known universe.

We did find him, though. In case you think mere typing to an unseen entity will never amount to any problems for you, know this: "Paul" said, "All right, I'm calling Headquarters about this, they'll talk to the site owners, find the guy's IP, and we'll look into it."

Then yesterday, two skin/knuckleheads were arrested by the ATF for concocting a loony plot to assassinate not only Obama, but eighty other African-Americans, beheading some for good measure. They were going to start off their spree by robbing a gun shop, and were going to rob a neighbor, but were scared off by a dog. And, they met on the Internet. I can't help hoping that one of them was the disgusting gooberhead who posted on Huffington.

And remember the ATF? These are the guys whom John McCain's friend G. Gordon Liddy recommended shooting. And gave his own home recipe for where and how to shoot them.

This whole election has been upside-down-land: conservatives screaming about sexism, liberals condemning mothers who work, and Mrs. Polly teaching Secret Service guys how to navigate the Huffington Post. It's tiring living with all your mental furniture on the ceiling.

But our mental furniture has been rearranged so often in the last eight years that now we should be used to the room twisting around like Fred Astaire's in that famous scene from Royal Wedding. How agile will we be the next time the room shifts again?

GORDO THE PLUMBER

G. Gordon Liddy with his favorite party trick: demonstrating what a sick puppy he is by holding his hand over an open flame and leaving it there until his dinner partner begs him to stop. You want to talk palling around with terrorists? Alrighty, let's do:

G. Gordon Liddy, on his show August 26, 1994: "Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a xxxx (I know this quote is widely known, but I am not going to further disseminate the handy agent-killing tips Liddy is handing out)shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests....They've got a big target on there, ATF. Don't shoot at that, because they've got a vest on underneath that. xxxx shots, xxxx shots.... Kill the sons of bitches."

John McCain on G. Gordon Liddy's show in 2007: "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family....It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

Contrast the the repeated statements of friendship and support between McCain and G.Gordon Liddy (who on his radio show advocated shooting Federal Agents, recommended methods for doing so, and never apologised for doing so) with the limited, formal contacts between Obama and Ayers.

Liddy is even now living off the notoriety he got for his crimes. He continues to have extremist views, but because he's an entertaining old sociopath, he's given a pass, even sought out for validation. One of the sicker aspects of humanity is that people seem to get a thrill from feeling they're accepted by a man who boasts that he's capable of murder.

Ayres went back to school and became an expert in the field of education. He's lived a non-radical life quietly contributing to society for the past thirty years, working with prominent Republicans like Walter Annenberg. Ayres does not live off of or benefit from having been a criminal, the way Liddy does. There are good reasons why he would be on a board along with Obama, none of them having to do with his radical past. The focus was on improving education.

There are no good reasons to associate with G. Gordon Liddy. He offers no expertise, has done nothing to rehabilitate himself, and openly flouts the law by keeping firearms though he is a convicted felon (Registered to his wife, but kept under his side of the bed). But he does have a radio show. The focus of his and McCain's association is mutual self-aggrandizement.

This tactic is not a winner for the Republicans. McCain and Palin are pointing out the speck in Obama's eye so as to draw attention away from the log in theirs.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Matthew 7:3

SAY IT AIN'T JOE!

Living talking point salt-of-the-earth Plumber Joe is neither a Plumber nor a Joe! http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/joe-in-the-spotlight/?hp

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher is a registered Republican non-plumber who owes back taxes. And--developing---may be related to, (and pardon me for enjoying this so much)-------

CHARLES KEATING!

Perhaps he really did happen to see Obama campaigning in the neighborhood and just decided to pin him down. And perhaps the new darling of the New York Post betrayed something extra when complaining about the answer Obama gave him: Sam---er, "Joe", complained that Obama tap danced "like Sammy Davis Jr." Now let's pause while Republicans dust off their "Obama's playing the race card", their go-to, dog-eared, time-worn, battle-scarred, defense of racism.

FLASH: THIS JUST IN, NOTJOE ALSO NOT A KEATING

Just another darling of local right wing talk-radio hosts, whose father, Robert Wurzelbacher, happens to share the same name as Charles Keating's SIL, Robert Wurzelbacher. But NotJoe Wurzelbacher, of the Ohio Wurzelbachers, does have an ability to spout right-wing talking points, engaging hapless reporters not only on his hostility to Social Security, but the necessity for offshore drilling, a true bread-and-butter Ohio issue.

PLUMBING THE SHALLOWS

McCain was as pleasant as usual, which is to say he acted as if Obama was something that needed to be scraped off the bottom of the national shoe. And if ever there was a time to advocate for retiring the use of finger quotes, it is now. Using finger quotes around "health of the mother" is the worst McCain faux pas, maybe ever! Well, in the last twenty-four hours.

The worst faux-pas since "We Have Got Them Right Where We Want Them!" :

Yes, having our opponents 10 points ahead of us allows us to keep an eye on them, the sneaky Arab bast**ds!

Mr. Polly thought McCain had won, just, with the fabulous "I'm not George Bush" line. If this was the best line of the night, it was a pathetic night, say I, Mrs. Polly. Remember the old apocryphal story about LBJ calling his opponent a child molester, and after an aide points out the opponent isn't a child molester, LBJ says, "I know, but I just want to hear him deny it."? Well how is it a zinger for McCain to have to deny he's George Bush?

Of course, I couldn't bear to look directly at the event; as usual, I read about it as others live-blogged, while Mr. Polly gave me updates. I'm easily nauseated, and tonight I'm still a delicate, Dresden China-frail blossom, having had oral surgery. So add the debate to the presoftened, lukewarm swill I require. Like much of the rest of America. But I had my gums sliced to ribbons, what's their excuse?

It's fun to see the pundits check each other in their peripheral vision, trying to get a read on what they ought to conclude about what just went on right in front of them, and adjust accordingly. Tonight, as for the first debate, several went out on a limb and called it for McCain only to have the focus groups and snap polls reprove them. And this after everyone, even Public Radio people, got totally obsessed with the CNN Wiggly Line of Damnation! The CNN Wiggles plainly favored Obama, particularly the female wiggles. How could anybody sit through 90 minutes of line watching and call the debate for McCain?

Well, time to take a Vicodin and go on the Oral Surgery Opiate Nod. Kids, remember to floss after every meal, snack, or accidental inhalation of particulate matter. It's important.

Johnnie Mac, the Intertubal Way

Now, this is the sort of partisan agitprop video with Profoundly. Melodramatic. Narration. In short. Urgent. Bursts. With Scary soundtrack. That. I. Don't like.

BUT it's about John McCain's temper! Which I am in a mood to highlight. After all, he two-facedly came out swinging at his opponent the day AFTER the match. That's not the MacNasty we need! But it seems that he can control himself if the opponent can hurt him back---aside from the contempt which leaks out of him in dribs and drabs. Is "That One" a drib or a drab?



Today, McCain and Palin continued to push the notion that Obama is a dangerous foreigner with terrorist ties, using half-truths, exaggerations and distortions. For instance, Obama served on the board of a charity with former Weather Underground member William Ayres. The charity was founded by Walter Annenberg, a conservative Republican and founder of Reader's Digest. But does anyone think he was a terrorist sympathizer?

At McCain and Palin rallies, shouts of "Kill him!" "Terrorist!" and "Cut off his head!" have been reported, but neither McCain nor Palin have said anything to calm down the mob mentality they seem to be cultivating. They simply repeat, "Who is Barack Obama?" as if it were Obama who'd been pulled out of obscurity five weeks ago and not Sarah Palin.

One day, people may deny that they were at McCain/Palin rallies the way older folks deny having been McCarthyites now. My folks once attended a McCarthy rally on a lark. Bad idea. My post on it: http://snarkopolitan.blogspot.com/2008/05/laughing-at-mccarthy-rally-bad-for.html

What does a hollow ex-hero's political career circling the drain look like? I think it looks like this. McCain managed to restrain himself, even attempt some false bonhomie (whew! excuse the elitist italics!), but his real contempt for Obama seeped out of his pores, his inability to even sit quietly while Obama spoke, and the moment where he jerked his thumb across his chest in Obama's direction and called him, "that one".