Blue Pride And The Real Red Menace

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This week's hot blog topics: Allen stomps (on people) for votes; Vice Shredder Dick Cheney must fear next Tuesday's elections - big time; the first lady (Mrs. Laura Valium) is an idiot; Rita Cosby and Chewbacca: separated at birth?; Big State Texas Republicans with giant freak heads are funny, even without Photoshop; and there really are such things as conspiracies. All this and much more. Enjoy!

Republicans Were For (Pandering To) Hispanics Before They Were Against Them

Hey, Minutemen! Did you forget about this Bush campaign ad in Spanish (posted at Housing Panic) from 2004? George W. hopes you did. That way, his 700 mile fence (across a 2000 mile border) doesn't sound so stupid. Speaking of stupid...

Allen Stomps (On A Guy) For Votes

Video evidence is a hell of a thing, isn't it?

Of course, there are no red Republican faces these days, are there. Hispanics, like so many other groups, have learned just how disposable they are if red state votes are in jeopardy.

Hey! Want to show the world (or at least your little corner of it) your blue pride on election day next Tuesday?

http://democrats.com/node/10646">Democrats.com says: Wear blue on election day! Hmm. Exit polling would be much easier to verify, wouldn't it?

The Vice Shredder and the First Idiot-ette

Posted at Wonkette:

Spotted on 10/19, by an eagle-eyed Wonkette reader: The Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services truck making its way up to the Cheney compound at the Naval Observatory. Fun fact: Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services has been contracted by the Secret Service for our Executive Branch's record-not-keeping needs.

Meanwhile, crickets chirped when Laura Bush attacked Michael J. Fox this week: "It's always easy to manipulate people's feelings, especially when you are talking about diseases that are so difficult." http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/31/laura-bush-michael-j-fox">Think Progress has the story and the video. Anyone else battling the "Snowflake Babies" earworm about now?

Cardboard. Paint. Overpass. Priceless.

Fortunately for all of us, The Freeway Blogger finally has a daily blog. Here's a recent entry:

Endless War


I made this sign out of a mattress box. It measured about seven-by fifteen feet and was visible to all lanes of traffic on the 580 by the Richmond/San Rafael bridge. The sign took less than an hour to make and cost about fifty cents in materials. Using a hammer and nails it took less than a minute to post and stayed up for two days.

God and the Voting Booth

Fundie Watch has the 411 on the latest scare tactic in conservative voter outreach. And it's a one-word battle cry: Gay!

Total crap. Enough said.

Heaton and Limbaugh and Slime, Oh My!

Leave it to "actress" Patricia Heaton (self-proclaimed pin up prude for the Republican Party) to lemming her way off the cliff after pioneers like Whatshisname Miller and that guy who played Jesus in Mel's snuff film. (I used to know their names. The test of time and all that jazz.) Anyway, this Heaton woman (who, by the way, tried and failed to get the open slot on The View) is still taking pot shots at Michael J. Fox.

Now we know why. From Taegan Goddard:

Key finding: "Republicans who indicated that they were voting for a Republican candidate decreased by 10% after viewing the ad (77% to 67%). Independents planning to vote for Democrats increased by 10%, from 39% to 49%."

As for Rush, did you catch Dood Abide's post at Daily Kos about Rush Limbaugh's facial and hand tics? Rush says he was just imitating Michael J. Fox, but a physician (aptly named "Justin Jest") claims that erectile dysfunction drugs can cause tics and even blindness. Hmm. Whom to believe? Rush or the fictional Doctor Jest? Decisions, decisions.

Sad, isn't it, that Rush and his dittoheads are still polluting the planet. I'm just glad that dudes like Dood Abide are out their blogging the bastard's every move.

Do you think registered Republicans know they're actually voting for Karl Rove? The sad facts are found at The Carpetbagger Report:

On Tuesday's edition of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, CBS White House correspondent Jim Axelrod mentioned that he's spoken with some White House officials about possible changes to the president's policy for the war in Iraq. He added what should have been a rather startling comment.

AXELROD: Well, the White House is in quite a bind, Katie, because on one hand, it has to project some sense of resolve, certainly to keep appealing to its base. On the other hand, they read the polls, and they know that voters want a change in Iraq policy. But as far as any significant change, a White House official tells me, do not expect to see anything significant prior to Election Day. Quoting, "You're not going to see anything before November 8th. It would be political suicide, and Karl Rove would never allow it."

COURIC: But why is it political suicide if so many people are unhappy with what's going on in Iraq? You would think that to save their hides Election Day, they'd want to change course.

AXELROD: Because this president is known, if for nothing else, for his resolve, for - even though they're trying to stay away from the phrase - staying the course. So to make such a significant change in two weeks' time I think would open - introduce more problems than suggest answers.

Wow. That rabbit hole is getting way past full, isn't it? Is this Karl's idea of supporting the troops? Sounds like it. Meanwhile…

Just Who Really DOESN'T Support The Troops?

VA Watch Dog has the particulars, and Republicans should be ashamed.

Yes, Virginia, there Really Are Conspiracies!

No tin foil needed when sifting through the sordid details of Jim Gibbons (R-Waitress Attackville, NV). TPM Muckraker has the coverup timeline, the identities of the GOP bigwigs and local law enforcement players, and even those responsible for suppressing evidence.

More Shameful Behavior (R-Pitiful Excuses)

Melissa Hart (R-Heartless, PA) has called the cops on a group of senior citizens who dared to deliver doughnuts to her campaign office. Yes, they were protesting the "hole" in the Republican-approved Social Security "restructuring" - but the cops? Atrios has the video.

While we're on the subject of shameful, here's yet another example from a long list of Bush Shameful Shenanigans, namely his stupid "strong economy" stance. New Jersey Real Estate Report quotes Paul Krugman's thoughtful assessment of the real US economy:

The Bush administration has been trying to shift attention away from the disaster in Iraq to an allegedly booming economy. That strategy wasn't working too well even when the headline numbers were good, because it never felt like a boom to most Americans. But now even the headline numbers have turned lousy.

And if that hurts the G.O.P. in next week's election, well, there's a certain poetic justice involved. The administration tried to claim undeserved credit for the positive effects of the housing boom, so why shouldn't it receive some blame for the negative effects of the housing bust?

The really sad truth? When Bush fails, we all fail. Heavy sigh.

Texas Big Heads Are Just Funny

Hate me. Berate me. Make me blog in the corner. Maybe it's this tense last week before the mid-term elections on November 7th. Maybe it's a need to laugh out loud for a change. Naaah. It's just one Texan (me) laughing at McBlogger's tribute to "Todd Staples and his GIANT freak head."

Here's Staples and his GIANT freak head (guaranteed not to be photoshopped. Honest.):

Again with that wicked huge head. Todd's not the smartest guy in the State by a long shot, so you have to wonder how defective all that tissue between his ears has to be. You know there is a lot of it. It's a shame he hasn't used it more.

His head is so large and distracting in this picture you almost don't notice the other two people. I think the older guy is someone from Cintra.

It might just be a Texas thing, but laughing at the heartless bugger keeps us a bit saner in a world gone mad. Before you depart McBlogger's site, scroll down to this post, "F-list celebrities come out against stem-cell research." Same rude reaction, same non-deniable derision, and another reason to howl with laughter. Still laughing? Jerome Armstrong at MYDD says Karl Rove is on crack. Hmm. If he is, here's why:

Let me just first of all state that Karl Rove is on crack. For all his talk of a 72 hour program (the basis of advantage which seems to be leafletting super-church parking lots the Sunday previous the election) and having THE polls, he's merely befuddling the reporters of the simple fact that remains the core of this election: The independents are aligned with Democrats. It was that way last week, and it's been that way all the time, since last summer.


The base support remains about the same (and that's being generous to Republicans), but there are about half of the Republican incumbents with PVI's of 10% or less Republican seats, and they are all potentially on the table this election. That's why the field of competitive Republican-held House districts has risen from 37 last November, to 49 this past April, to 57 in August, and now up to 72. And it is comparative to '94, when 101 Democratic-held seats were in play.

Sit on that and spin, Karl!

Thank a DUer!

Thanks to onenote for posting the link to a friend's Apple-inspired political campaign ad.

To tblue for posting this:

Separated at birth? Plausible.

And to Bob Geiger for posting these back-to-back DU journal posts:

Our President is a Lying Scumbag


How's that headline for stating the obvious?

It's difficult to pick any one day when George W. Bush is worse than another. He's clearly the sorriest excuse for a president in our country' history and yet, amazingly, he still finds ways to be even worse almost every day. (http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Bob%20Geiger/251">More...)

What stories are ranked above the contrived Kerry flap on CNN's most popular items this hour?

1. Trump cited for 80-foot flag pole
2. Mom accused of duct-taping kids
3. Tough week for Katie Couric
4. Iran offers cash to U.S. tourists

Enough said.

By the way, Bob... Here's the screen capture for you:


Naturally, http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2006/11/in-brief-republican-law-of-rovean.html">The Rude Pundit puts the Kerry flap (one tiny word left out of a much bigger truth) into perspective:

So let's see if the Rude Pundit can get this straight, 'cause, see, sometimes his mind can't grapple with the logic of the right:

A lefty blogger trying to ask Republican Senator George Allen impolite questions in a public space is tossed around and assaulted by Goons for Allen (an organization whose 501c3 status is pending), and Republican Senator Liddy Dole says that it's an example not of how arrogant and abusive amoral Allen's asshole assistants are, but of how low the campaign of Allen's opponent, Democrat James Webb, has sunk.

A Republican member of Congress, Mark Foley, is revealed to have been regularly coming on to teenage male pages through internet messaging, a fact that was known to, at the very least, top staffers for the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, and those very Republicans declare not that they fucked up, but that Democrats are actually responsible for covering-up for Foley.

The Republican President of the United States regularly "misspeaks", where he ends up admitting things like that his job is to "catapult the propaganda" about issues and comparing his brush-clearing injuries with those of wounded soldiers when he said, "As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself - not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch," and the mainstream media ignores such statements as minor slips of the tongue, not indicative of the character of the man or the content of his policies, but explodes with massive coverage of a tripped-up joke by Democratic Senator John Kerry, deciding that a decorated war vet must hate the troops for trying to say that the President is a hunched-over baboon.

As for Karl Rove's weird-assed campaign rhetoric this week, MYDD notes that der Rovenführer has already posited his excuse for a possible Dem blowout next Tuesday:

It's not Rove's fault if his candidates lose, even though he controls all major levers of power and finance within the party. Rove cannot fail, he can only be failed.

Yeah, Rove. And Scarlett O'Hara was never sorry for anything she did; she was just sorry she got caught. Keep spinning, KKKarl. If the best your party can do is come up with "plausible" excuses for your crimes and incompetence, you have two choices: cheat the vote or bribe the rabid right-wing base with more promises of a theocratic regime... after the election, of course.

Five days. So many Republican scandals, so little column space. Rain clouds. Silver linings. You know the drill: spread the word, hit the streets this weekend, and volunteer to drive someone to the polls on Nov. 7th. And keep sending those great blog links! This election is just the beginning.

-- Delilah Boyd