Chronically Pissed

Surge-a-rific!

Commanders in the field, facts on the ground, telegraphing to the enemy, surge, surge, surge, it's succeeding, we're winning, come home in victory, not defeat. This is the litany of catch phrases being employed by McCain and his supporters to defuse any gains Obama might make on his trip to the central front in the McBush legacy of international failure. The surge worked, they tell us, which might not have happened if Obama had been making the decisions...

Well, let's not forget that the surge, which was really an expensive rescue operation (after the criminally inept prosecution of a tragically unnecessary invasion), would not have been necessary if Obama - or anyone but a salivating coven of bloodthirsty neocons - had been making the decisions. And opposition to the surge was never based on the prospects for its success or failure. Opposition to the surge was based on the prevailing consensus that none of the remaining possible outcomes in Iraq are worth another American life, limb, or dollar. So we don't give a shit, frankly, whether the surge has "worked." We just want someone who had the good sense to oppose this entire fiasco making decisions for a change.

So you can trot out the Joe Liebermans and Bobby Jindals and Lindsey Grahams to gloat pathetically that you were right all along, if by "right all along," you mean hopelessly chained to a cataclysmic American blunder and desperate to save face. Good luck with that.

The Complete Idiots Guide To Satire

I was thrilled to see that the New Yorker's cover was stirring up controversy, until I found out where the complaints were coming from. Apparently the Obama campaign has decided to express solidarity with the dumb people by pretending that they don't get ironic stuff, by questioing the decency of satire employed in the candidate's defense. The New Yorker has honored Obama with this brilliant piece of satirical art which excoriates the exploitation of Obama's ethnic differentness for the cultivation of "The Politics of Fear," which is the title of the piece, by the way.

And the campaign has responded, not by taking the intellectual high road, but by calling the cover " tasteless and offensive." Now maybe these people are so intellectual that they think everyone reads The New Yorker - after all, everyone they know does - but they could have just left this alone. After all, The New Yorker cannot be found on the shelves at Wal Mart, Bass Pro shops, or in the waiting rooms of double-wide trailer realtors.

They could also have had a good laugh at the expense of all the idiots who are, with not a trace of irony, forwarding emails like this one to everyone they know:

WHERE IS THE MONEY COMING FROM?
The New York Times

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: June 29, 2008

Go to Columnist Page >>
OBAMA'S TROUBLING INTERNET FUND RAISING 
Certainly the most interesting and potentially devastating phone call I have received during this election cycle came this week from one of the Obama's campaign internet geeks.  These are the staffers who devised Obama's internet fund raising campaign which raised in the neighborhood of $200 million so far.  That is more then twice the total funds raised by any candidate in history and this was all from the internet campaign.

What I learned from this insider was shocking, but I guess we shouldn't be surprised that when it comes to fund raising there simply are no rules that can't be broken and no ethics that prevail.

Obama's internet campaign started out innocently enough with basic e-mail networking , lists saved from previous party campaigns and from supporters who visited any of the Obama campaign web sites.
Small contributions came in from these sources and the internet campaign staff  were more than pleased by the results.

Then, about two months into the campaign the daily contribution intake multiplied.  Where was it coming from?  One of the web site security monitors began to notice the bulk of the contributions were clearly coming in from overseas internet service providers and at the rate and frequency of transmission it was clear these donations were "programmed" by a very sophisticated user.

While the security people were not able to track most of the sources due to firewalls and other blocking devices put on these contributions, they were able to collate the number of contributions that were coming in seemingly from individuals but the funds were from only a few credit card accounts and bank electronic funds transfers.  The internet service providers (ISP) they were able to trace were from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries. One of the banks used for fund transfers was also located in Saudi Arabia.

Another concentrated group of donations was traced to a Chinese ISP with a similar pattern of limited credit card charges.

It became clear that these donations were very likely coming from sources other than American voters.  This was discussed at length within the campaign and the decision was made that none of these donations violated campaign financing laws.

It was also decided that it was not the responsibility of the campaign to audit these millions of contributions as to the actual source (specific credit card number or bank transfer account numbers) to insure that none of these internet contributors exceeded the legal maximum donation on a cumulative basis of many small donations.  They also found the record keeping was not complete enough to do it anyway.

This is a shocking revelation.

We have been concerned about the legality of "bundling" contributions after the recent exposure of illegal bundlers but now it appears we may have an even greater problem.

I guess we should have been somewhat suspicious when the numbers started to come out.  We were told (no proof offered) that the Obama internet contributions were from $10.00 to $25.00 or so.

If the $200,000,000 is right, and the average contribution was $15.00, that would mean over 13 million individuals made contributions?  That would also be 13 million contributions that would need to be processed.  How did all that happen?

I believe the Obama campaign's internet fund raising needs a serious, in depth investigation and audit.  It also appears the whole question of internet fund raising needs investigation by the legislature and perhaps new laws to insure it complies not only with the letter of these laws but the spirit as well.

Needless to say, this op-ed never appeared in the New York Times. It has, however, appeared in the in-boxes of millions of stupid Americans, as well the in-boxes of those who are unfortunate enough to be acquainted with or related to stupid Americans. There are people out there who realize that the vast well of fear and bigotry in America can be tapped into with simple little hack-job fabrications like this. Countering with facts doesn't seem to work on these people, so we may as enjoy a good laugh at their epic simple-mindedness.

 

July 13, 2008

John McCain's new favorite surrogate appears to be Carly Fiorina, who appeared on Meet The Press this morning, opposite Senator Claire McCaskill. Her presence in the campaign is clearly designed to allay concerns about McCain's grasp of the economy. She speaks confidently about economic issues, expressing concern for the middle class (by which I think she means people who make between $250k-$1million per year), gently condescending to Barack Obama's lack of economic experience, relative to her own.

I'd just like to remind eveyone that the esteemed Ms. Fiorina was ousted by the board of directors at Hewlett Packard after her leadership failed to produce the results she promised. So, when she says that John McCain can balance the budget in four years, perhaps we should consider the source. And when she pretends to understand the pain of working people, we should remember that Carly walked away from HP with a $21 million dollar severance package. Precious few Americans have ever been handed millions of dollars for getting fired. I, for one, will take her economic opinions with a grain of salt.

From One Asshole To Another

Well, it looks like Tony Snow's asshole finally did him in after all the talking he did out of it. I know, it's impolite to kick a lying sack of shit when he's dead, but I've never been particularly polite. Neither cancer nor death can change the fact that Tony Snow spent the last eight years bald-faced lying to the American people on behalf of the Bush administration. Whether it was on the payroll of FOX "News" or the White House, Tony Snow was a devoted to flackery for a pack of criminals. When he'd made enough money doing it on television, he made a play for power. When that didn't pay enough, he returned to television. Say what you will about Scott McClellan - at least he had the balls to eventually stand up and tell some truth. I had hoped that Tony, whose congeniality made me desperate to like him, might be pushed to his moment of truth by the prospect of death. Apparently not. And so, with his death, there is one less cancer on the asshole of America.

{Okay, so with this post I've already fallen off the wagon. I'll keep trying...]

Days of Whine and Roses

Allow me to agree with Phil Gramm for a moment. We are a nation of whiners. Always whining about having our capital gains taxed, about having our multi-million dollar estates taxed when we die, about not being allowed to drill for oil in the arctic wilderness, about not wanting to be prosecuted for conspiring with the Bush administration to illegally tap the phones of Americans, about Americans' inability to understand why gas costs so much while the oil industry racks up record profits, or their failure to comprehend why compensation for corporate executives needs to skyrocket while everyone else watches their wages fall, about the debilitating burdens that would be placed on corporations by greenhouse gas emission standards, about the need to rescue giant financial institutions that have sunk themselves by getting too greedy and too deceptive, about the "myth" of global warming, about liberal bias in the media, and on and on and on...

We are, indeed, a nation of whiners. Oh sure, these whiners may only represent 5% of the population, but they also represent 95% of the nation's wealth. Naturally their whining should be considered in proporation to their status as the financial majority. It's too bad they have chosen to make America look like a land of whimpering pantywaists, with their endless complaints about the ways in which their endless fortunes are being purloined by the fiscal minority.

I salute Phil Gramm for speaking truth to power, for standing up to the top 95% in defense of the bottom 5%. I hope his words will be a catalyst for change and that the whiners among us will stop their snot-nosed sniveling.

Obama's March To The Middle

I hate to jump on the bandwagon here, but one component of Obama’s recent centrist makeover is deeply disturbing to me. I was relatively okay with him pandering to churches in Appalachia with cheesy fliers featuring corpseless crucifixes. Whatever it takes to win, right? But his plan to expand Bush’s faith-based initiatives program is crossing the line in a big way. Here’s why…

Let’s say you give the Church Of Christ the King a $20,000 grant to feed orphan children in Costa Rica. Let’s pretend, for the sake of argument, that the members of C.O.C.K. will not proselytize in any way, that their mission is strictly to put food in the mouths of hungry orphans and that they are organized, motivated, and efficient. One could certainly argue that this is a win-win situation. The taxpayers’ $20,000 has been well spent on a good cause, with no apparent conflict between church and state.

Now let’s look at C.O.C.K.’s overall budget for the same fiscal year. Sure, we might find that our $20,000 is meticulously accounted for, faithfully allocated to the agreed mission. But what if we turn the page to a separate budget line and find that another $20,000—raised by the church for their own purposes—was spent on bus trips to “pro-life” marches in Washington D.C., classes designed to “cure” homosexuals of their gayness, and a fee for Pat Robertson to speak at C.O.C.K.? What if the pastor of C.O.C.K. has a $20,000 SUV, paid for by the church, to transport his wife and three children to church from their home in the suburbs, for which the church pays the $20,000/year mortgage?

I am currently sequestered in the village of Fabius, New York (pop. 344) where there are three churches—that’s one per 115 residents, without accounting for how many actually go to church on days that aren’t Christmas. Back home in Florida there is a stretch of suburban road that I like to call our church mall. In the span of a mile or two, you can choose between Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Armenian, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Church of Christ, and a synagogue. What about the financial overhead involved in having so many factions competing for souls? Should federal funds be used to subsidize the eternal debate over which interpretation of which ancient religious text is the best? (Even I might be able to get behind funding for effective programs that are completely interdenominational—open to Christians, Muslims, Hindi, Jews, Scientologists, Buddhists, Mormons, Wiccans, et al—given the reduced likelihood that funds could indirectly support any specific mythical creation.)

When coupled with his denunciation of the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the death penalty for non-muderers (not that I support it for actual murderers) and his newfound sympathy for the telecom industry (as expressed by his support for the new FISA bill which grants them retroactive immunity), I’m beginning to worry that Obama is not the candidate he promised to be. If I’d known that he was going to start acting like a run-of-the-mill politician, I might well have decided that Hillary Clinton would be the stronger candidate in the fall. Instead, I bought into the story that his candidacy was premised on something new and better.

While I cannot credibly suggest that I won’t vote for him in November, I can tell you that I have decided to cease my periodic donations to his campaign until I see how this plays out. I’m not interested in fueling a campaign (with money I don’t have) that is going to abandon such fundamental ideals as the separation of church and state by adopting George W. Bush’s platform.

Turn it around, O. Don’t do this. I know that all the political gurus are telling you that you have to, but remember that they’re all stuck in the same political time warp that defeated Hillary. They’ve been playing one game for too long and have accepted their own conventional wisdom as the rules of that game. You showed them that ignoring those rules could work. Don’t start playing politics now.

Also…we’re ready for something big. Where’s the grand vision, man? Things are shit up in here. Where’s our New Deal? Where’s the visionary plan that is going to take the foot off our throats? Stop dicking around and start firing us up. Don’t engage in the same, tired old debates by telling us where you stand on the narrow spectrum of acceptable positions. Transform the debate. Tell us what we can do for our country and how we can take it back. Tell us how we’re going to stop the bleeding and start the healing.