One Less Dope Addict in New York

John Stewart last night, on the news that a certain lying filthbag dope fiend is leaving New York because the Governor is raising taxes on people making more than $500K per year

If you’re heading out from Uptown, take 42nd Street west to Ninth Avenue. make a left, go down four blocks, Lincoln Tunnel’s on your right, and you know what? Here’s my EZ-Pass. Get the fuck out of here.

Win. Guiliani, whatever his faults, did a lot to clean up New York, but this is one piece of refuse he didn’t manage to chase out of town. Go New York!

McCain Scores Another Endorsement: The KKK

LINK.

Y’know, I don’t think I need to actually comment on this one.

Palin Says “God will do the right thing” on Nov. 4

In an interview posted today, Gov. Sarah Palin told wife-beating advocate and radical cleric James Dobson that she is confident “God will do the right thing for America” on November 4th. If the numbers that virtually every poll is currently pulling down hold up at all, Palin will be right for a change.

Because God hates conservatism, particularly the warped ideology that’s turned so many of His followers in America today into violent hatemongers and hypocrites. There’s not a doubt in my mind that if there’s a Hell, men such as Dobson, Pat Robertson, John Hagee and Rush Limbaugh will burn in it.

Being a Christian is not about shoving your faith down other people’s throats or into public policy. It’s not about telling lies about your political adversaries or starting wars with countries that have not attacked you. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:38-40)

This is a principle worth believing in, regardless of your religious affiliation. And it’s one that American religious far right has largely abandoned. It is the difference between a person of faith and a religious fanatic of the most contemptible sort – again, regardless of religion, sect or congregation. It’s the difference between using your faith to guide you actions and using your religion to justify your actions, the difference between men of faith and goodwill and men filled with hatred and bigotry – the difference between John Paul II and Father Charles Coughlin.

Dobson, Robertson, Falwell – the pillars of American Fundamentalism – are lousy human beings and even lousier Christians.

Al Qaeda Endorses John McCain

Yep.

The reason is that al-Qaeda hates America, and John McCain will continue to move America down the path that conservative government has led it for the last 29 years – the one that leads to American irrelevance. Al-Qaeda supports McCain because it supports inept leadership in the United States.

Same as conservatives, only they’ve been fooled into thinking that belligerence is strength, stupidity makes for good policy, creationism is science and bigotry is Christian.

Joe the Rich, White Republican

I did not watch the debate last night – there didn’t seem to be much point. Not that the race is over, but my time was better spent on other things. But there’s ample analysis this morning.

Nevertheless, polls seem to indicate across the board that Obama came out on top. I think that was inevitable – Obama is the better candidate, with better policies and better judgement, cooler under fire and more presidential. McCain is more like Nikita Khrushchev, banging his shoe on the table like an unstable nut.

By the way, “Joe the Plumber” is in fact a rich, white Christian Evangelical, and a registered Republican. Who told Katie Couric that he already knew who he was going to vote for, and that the debate didn’t change his mind. Is it really credible for the media to cite this guy as an ‘undecided’ voter?

It’s Not Bush That’s Rotten

I am occasionally reminded that I kind of feel sorry for George W. Bush. I know he’s been a terrible President, possibly the worst in American history. Despite that, I’ve always considered him a decent guy; once he got over the booze and coke he turned into a decent family man and a good father, to the best of my knowledge. I also don’t doubt that his intentions were good, even though he’s been inept in many respects.

The last eight years have been hard on him. I’m sure the last two have been even harder; he can’t get much done with a Democratic congress and he’s now the most despised President in US history, and knows it. It’s easy to blame him for the many follies of his administration, for the economic collapse and the failed War on Terror, but the truth is that he implemented conservative ideas to a far greater extent than any recent Republican president, including Ronald Reagan, and it is those principles which account for the spectacular failure of his administration far more than his personal failings.

Conservatism doesn’t work. It’s been shown not to work, time and again – the same economics that led to the Great Depression are what’s put America’s economy in the tank today. Deregulation doesn’t work. Abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work. Teaching kinds mythology in science classes doesn’t work. You can shine that up all you want, but the fundamental tenets of what we call ‘conservatism’ are flawed, not becuase they are merely wrong (objectively and, I would argue, ethically) but because it is an ideology concerned more with loyalty than with facts. The Bush presidency failed not because Bush is a bumbler, but because he chose his advisors and cabinet on the basis of their loyalty to conservative ideology rather than their ability, as the ideology itself demands a leader do, and governed the nation by its invalid principles.

Do not, therefore be misled that Bush’s ineptitude led the country to this precarious place, as both right and left are doing. Blame the political philosophy that caused Bush to govern as he did.

Is This Saint Ron?

Why does Ronald Reagan’s official White House portrait look more like Regis Philbin?

You be the judge.

The Best Election Prediction Site on the Web

One of the links you’ll find to the right is to FiveThirtyEight.com, probably the best polling site in the world for the 2008 elections. New York Magazine has a lengthy profile of Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight’s founder, and his background in statistics – it’s a very interesting read regardless of your political views.

Be warned, though, that Silver is predicting a high chance of Obama victory in November, and leans left himself, although his site is pretty even-handed. Those that would find this at odds with their Ideology should consider themselves warned.

The False McCain = Wallace Comparison

Rep. John Lewis’ recent repudiation of John McCain’s campaign tactics drew a lot of fire from the McCain campaign, moderate media attention and a mild rebuke from the Obama camp. But is comparing the dirty McCain campaign to George Wallace fair?

Not really, no.

George Wallace, despite his later attempts at revising history, was a douchebag bigot of the lowest order. Even America’s most prominent modern hatemongers, Pat Robertson, John Hagee and James Dobson, pale in comparison. McCain’s 2008 campaign, sordid though it is, doesn’t hold a candle to those mounted by Wallace. The comparison has a shred of truth to it, but only that… and it’s unfair to John McCain, and even to the Rove disciples running his campaign.

That said, you’d better believe that there’s a racist undercurrent to this year’s Republican campaign; there has been in every Presidential campaign since Saint Ron’s 1980 victory. The cornerstone of the southern strategy, itself the bedrock of modern Republican campaigning, is appealing to white bigots with sly insinuations and a firm stand against anything that bigots perceive as favoring blacks. This year’s model is no different – it’s why you see so many ads emphasizing Obama’s foreignness.

Obama Up by Double Digits; Propagana Organs Under Threat

The latest Washington Post/ABC poll shows Barack Obama up in double digits against John McCain. The McCain strategy of 100% negative ads and campaign stops that increasingly resemble the Nuremburg Rallies appears to be failing. That a review of the Troopergate affair found that Sarah Palin abused gubernatorial power probably didn’t help – the kind of voter who approves of Palin is not the sort to be dissuaded by facts.

But then, this is the cornerstone of Republican Political Strategy, and has been since Nixon defined it and Reagan perfected it. Go light on facts, go long on character assassination, and you’ll win elections. It’s been working for them since 1980, and entire institutes have been established to promote this corrupt philosophy. That conservatism has failed is now becoming clear to the American people depsite the efforts of those within that movement to obfuscate this with identity politics and smear campaigns. The weight of facts is too overwhelming, and the engines of propaganda that have been successful in propping it up for over two decades are now failing.

What will happen if Obama wins the election, the Democrats widen their leads in Congress, and the fairness doctrine is reinstituted? What will happen to the right-wing propaganda industry? To Fox News and the hundreds of radio stations across the country that spew lies in favor of one political party?