This is the bag the Albuquerque Journal was wrapped in this morning. One last ‘fuck you’ from our friends at the Journal and the sensible folks at the NRA. I’d vote in a minute to take every gun away from everyone, including the cops and military. But, don’t be such chicken-shits, NRA: Your guns are safe. And so is your right to absurd fear-mongering. Let’s be clear: The NRA is all about fear. Which is why the NRA is merely a tool of the fearful conservatives. peace, mjh
In case you thought things were uglier, or less classy, this year than in 2004, remember this:
peace,
mjh
It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate through two months of chaperoned campaigning, but the truth emerges: The lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about. When she said, “One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let’s commit ourselves just every day, American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars,” people smelled gas.
Some Republicans adore her because they are pranksters at heart and love the consternation of grown-ups. The ne’er-do-well son of the old Republican family as president, the idea that you increase government revenue by cutting taxes, the idea that you cut social services and thereby drive the needy into the middle class, the idea that you overthrow a dictator with a show of force and achieve democracy at no cost to yourself—one stink bomb after another, and now Gov. Sarah Palin.
She is a chatty sportscaster who lacks the guile to conceal her vacuity, and she was Sen. John McCain’s first major decision as the Republican nominee for president. This troubles independent voters, and now she is a major drag on his candidacy.
Here’s an excerpt from a vile letter from the fanatical Randall Terry:
[I]f you are one of those Christians – Evangelical, Protestant, or Catholic, who thinks it would be fine if Obama becomes President, you might as well go away now. Your mind is so muddled, your ethics and priorities are so warped, that there is probably no reaching you. God forgive your insanity and treachery.
Way to reach out, dude. Enjoy your obscurity. peace, mjh
FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right: McCain Miami Rally, Getting Ugly Down Here
After the rally, we witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment in a crowd when something goes from mere yelling to a feeling of danger, and that’s what we witnessed. As photographers and police raced to the scene, the crowd elevated from stable to fast-moving scrum, and the two men were surrounded on all sides as we raced to the circle.
The event maybe lasted a minute, two at the most, before police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone. Only FiveThirtyEight tracked the two men down for comment, a quarter mile down the street.
“People were screaming ‘Terrorist!’ ‘Communist!’ ‘Socialist!'” Sorando said when we caught up with him. “I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me.”
Asked what had precipitated the event, “We were just chanting ‘Obama!’ and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy.”
FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right: McCain Miami Rally, Getting Ugly Down Here
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On Saturday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) gave little-noticed remarks at Sioux City’s West High School during an appearance by Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK). King went beyond the traditional right-wing talking points — which brand Obama a “Marxist” who adheres to “socialism” — and said that he would turn the United States into a “totalitarian dictatorship.” From a report by the Iowa Independent:
King, known for provocative, partisan remarks, suggested Obama actually could be classified as even more extreme than a socialist. King also said his party is the only one with a legitimate claim on representing freedom as Americans know it.
“When you take a lurch to the left you end up in a totalitarian dictatorship,” King said. “There is no freedom to the left. It’s always to our side of the aisle.” …
Speaking in Exira, IA on Aug. 21, King claimed that Obama was anti-American and raised by polygamists and “left wing hard core atheists”:
“Obama was not raised with an intentional attitude toward Americanism. … The way to look at the reasons Obama doesn’t place his hand over his heart when the National Anthem is playing, or wear an American flag pin is primarily because he is not willful or spiteful, but because it just doesn’t occur to him because it’s not the way he’s been raised. American patriotism is not imprinted on his mind or in his heart, because he wasn’t raised as an American.”
Appeals may be ironic. peace, mjh
Associated Press – October 25, 2008 2:05 PM ET
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) – Republican presidential candidate John McCain has held the first of 2 visits to New Mexico communities today with a rally at the state fairgrounds in Albuquerque.
McCain appeared with his wife, Cindy, before a crowd of about 1,500 that waved blue McCain-Palin signs and chanted, “USA, USA!”
McCain told the crowd he has a fight ahead of him before Election Day.
This in from FBIHOP via newmexiken.
E. J. Dionne Jr. – Civil War on the Right – washingtonpost.com
For years, many of the elite conservatives were happy to harvest the votes of devout Christians and gun owners by waging a phony class war against “liberal elitists” and “leftist intellectuals.” Suddenly, the conservative writers are discovering that the very anti-intellectualism their side courted and encouraged has begun to consume their movement.
The cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, Robert Nisbet and William F. Buckley Jr. is now in the hands of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity — and Sarah Palin. Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda, ideas by slogans, learned manifestoes by direct-mail hit pieces.
And then there is George W. Bush. Conservatives once hailed him as creating an enduring majority on behalf of their cause. Now, they cast him as the goat in their story of decline.
E. J. Dionne Jr. – Civil War on the Right – washingtonpost.com