Briefs

"Rod Blagojevich was the first Democrat to be elected governor of Illinois in 30 years, a distinction he proceeded to totally crap all over by continually failing to pass legislation and budgets, making many political enemies (even in his own party), committing federal and state crimes, wearing a ridiculous side-part in some seriously bouffant hair, and, in October 2008, earning the title “America’s Least Popular Governor.” All that before he got arrested."

-Dickipedia

CHICAGO, Ill. - Arguably the biggest blue dick in politics has defied virtually everyone by naming a replacement for Barack Obama in the United States Senate. Illinois governor Rod "Rod" Blagojevich, who was arrested earlier this month for conspiring to sell President-Elect Obama's recently vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder, has named some guy that gave him a lot of money Roland Burris to the job.

After being released on bond, the governor returned to business as usual, refusing to resign his position as governor despite pressure from the entire U.S. Senate, virtually every politician at every level in the state of Illinois, President-Elect Obama himself, and roughly 12,500,000 people who happen to live in Illinois proper, 1.8 million of whom, for some unfathomable reason, voted for this incredible douchebag. Senate majority leader Harry Reid has stated that the Democratic Caucus will not seat anyone who is appointed by Mr. Blagojevich. He reiterated this sentiment in a statement released today shortly after the governor's announcement.

President-Elect Obama who is vacationing in his native Hawaii this week has not commented personally on the appointment as of this writing.

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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories - Israel and the Hamas led government of the Palestinian National Authority are engaged in a bloody conflict near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. In other news, water is wet.

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PALMER, Alaska - MSNBC is reporting that Bristol Palin, daughter of failed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and her baby-daddy have been offered $300,000 for first dibs on pictures of their newborn son, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston.

That this is possible has led this editorialist to consider travel to the aforementioned Gaza Strip, stepping into the lobby of a Hamas government building and placing a colorful yarmulka on my head. My guess is that I'll last around 14 seconds before being reunited with my dead relatives - a comforting alternative to a world where Mr. & Mrs. Levi Johnston can earn more than 10 times the annual income of the average American family solely for a set of pictures of their erroneous love-spawn, an oven-bun no one gave a shit about until Bristol's fuckwit mother was named "Number Two" on John McCain's presidential ticket.

Who says underage pre-marital intercourse sans wood-hood isn't a rewarding experience?


Flesh Fedora sez:
"For 300G, leave the package-protector at home!"

Briefs

WASHINGTON D.C. - The people of Michigan would like to send a collective thanks (read: go fuck yourself) to Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who effectively killed the automaker bailout bill this week. It looks like Chapter 11 is looming large over eastern Michigan.

G.M. confirmed that it had legal advisors -- including Harvey R. Miller of the firm Weil Gotshal & Manges -- to consider a possible bankruptcy, which the company until now has said would be cataclysmic not just for G.M. but for Chrysler and Ford as well. The rescue plan approved by the House on Wednesday by a vote of 237 to 170 would have extended $14 billion in loans to the troubled automakers and required them to submit to broad government oversight directed by a car czar to be named by [President] Bush.

It's not that I think that these bailouts are a good thing. I really don't. A bailout with oversight, however, is certainly a better thing than watching a major American industry get buried six feet under. One has to consider that the feds were chomping at the bit to pass a $700 Billion bailout for the corrupt financial institutions of Wall Street in New York not two months ago. Now, as Detroit looks forward to cataclysmic failure, there appears to be nothing our friends in Washington can do for us.

So it goes.

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MOSCOW, Russian Federation - A Russian entrepreneur, Oleg Teterin, has trademarked the "wink" emoticon with the federal patent agency in Russia.

"I want to highlight that this is only directed at corporations, companies that are trying to make a profit without the permission of the trademark holder," he said in comments to NTV.

Companies will be sent legal warnings if they use the symbol without his permission, he said.

"Legal use will be possible after buying an annual license from us," he was quoted by Kommersant as saying. "It won't cost that much - tens of thousands of dollars."

He also said since other similar emoticons - :-) or ;) or :) - resemble the one he has trademarked, use of those symbols could also fall under his ownership.

Other Russian Internet entrepreneurs reacted to the effort predictably - >:(

"Imagine the next wise-guy who trademarks the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet and then says anyone who uses the Russian alphabet has to send him money. It's absurd," Alexander Manis, the director of a broadband internet and mobile company, told NTV.

Oleg Teterin, proving to the world that Russian businessmen can be just as nauseatingly prickish as any other businessmen.

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ANDERSON, Calif. - Finger lickin' gross.

Three female KFC employees have been axed by the Colonel for bathing in the sink of the restaurant in Anderson. Predictably, news outlets around the world have had some fun with this. Here are a few of the headlines:

KFC Workers Bathing in Bathtub Get Pink Slip from the Colonel
-The Cleveland Ledger

Finger Lickin' Frolics
-The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia)



Myspace, Panties and Bras = Fired
-The Post Chronicle

Three KFC Employees in Hot Water After Dip in Restaurant's Sink
-Redding Record-Searchlight (Calif.)

Yuk.

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Finally, there has been more "controversy" surrounding Jennifer Aniston's most recent foray into quasi-nakedness on the cover of this month's GQ magazine.



Several years ago, the same Jennifer Aniston appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine sans vêtements.



(That one actually is pretty hot)

The only people who are concerned about this are media outlets trying to stir up controversy, and people who voted for John McCain. Neither group really matters much in the scheme of things.

Be thankful, though. Readers of a certain age group will recall the following and be relieved that the former doesn't, in any way, resemble John Lennon.



Srsly.

Trophy Vice Goes Home

Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska has reached out to President-elect Obama's transition team to indicate her interest in being named "ambassador to the nation of Africa," the governor confirmed today.

Gov. Palin said that although she had planned to continue in her position in Anchorage, she was willing to leave the governorship "because Africa is just such a darned important country."

Andy Borowitz, The Borowitz Report

Nine weeks ago, Caribou Barbie flew down to the lower 48 to effectively destroy any hopes John McCain may have once had of being President of the United States.

Someone in McCain's campaign, perhaps even Johnnie Mac himself, thought it would be an excellent idea, now that Hillary was out of the picture, to produce a woman for the important position of vice-president. This is, of course, an honorable thing to do. Women, after all, make up more than 50% of the nation's population and, to date, haven't been represented by one of their own even once as one of the top two ranking individuals of the executive branch.

0-91 is a pretty crappy record for women in the White House.

Anyhoo, the Johnnie Mac Shack decided that a woman would be a good idea. There are lots and lots of excellent & highly qualified female Republicans who would be a top-notch asset to a McCain candidacy and a McCain administration.

All but five of the nation's vice-presidents have served in congress or as a senator or governor, so going with that, there are dozens of great choices. Snowe (ME), Hutchinson (TX), Musgrave (CO), Moore-Capito (WV), Lingle (HI), Rell (CT). All are smart and experienced women who would, if necessary, be satisfactory presidents.

But then there's the little known governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. Elected in November 2006, Palin was, prior to being governor, the mayor of Wasilla, AK (pop. 6600), and served on an energy board. She had been out of the United States (not including the neighboring Yukon Territory of Canada) once. She attended four different colleges as an undergraduate, finally graduating in 1987 with a communications major from the University of Idaho.

So, after spending a dozen or more months slamming Barack Obama, the man who would become the Democratic candidate for president, on his experience in relation to qualifying for the top job, the McCain campaign rolls out Sarah Palin to the collective, slack-jawed American electorate.

They tried to paint her as the everyday "hockey-mom" from a small state who would ostensibly represent the average joe. She was way over on the far right of issues involving religion and women's rights, and gun ownership and all that. The problem, as it turned out, was that she...well...isn't very bright when it comes to complex domestic and international issues regarding the safety and security of this nation.

During the few times she was allowed to talk to the media, she said jaw-droppingly stupid things. She didn't understand civics, she didn't understand geography or international diplomacy, she made startlingly inane statements regarding Russia, the job of the vice-president, and on and on. She was punk'd by a couple of morning radio jocks in Montréal who called her up and convinced her that she was talking to Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France. From a $150,000 wardrobe (more than the average family spends on clothing in 80 years), to revelations that the Alaskan governor was, perhaps, just as ignorant as she led on, the McCain campaign became overwhelmed with damage-control.

In the end, of course, McCain lost, and he lost big. Today, three full days after the election, the campaign is boisterously blaming Palin for killing the campaign.

So who's fault is that? Palin's?

I think not.

Sarah Palin is Sarah Palin, for better or for worse. It was the job of John McCain and his campaign to properly vet and pre-qualify a potential vice-presidential candidate prior to that candidate being rolled out. The campaign should know, inside and out, without any doubt, what that candidate is all about. It should know exactly what the candidate knows, her background, what she's said, whether he or she has been unfaithful to their spouse, whether they've done drugs, if there are any "sex-tapes" floating around. All of these things have to be uncovered BEFORE the candidate is chosen and unveiled to the electorate.

So to all of the McCain/Palin staffers who are out there flinging mud at Sarah Palin: It's not her fault that she is who she is. It's your fault for not knowing it.

Obama.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Election Night Liveblog

11:00pm: Obama. Has. Won.

10:10pm: It's now mathematically impossible for John McCain to win this election. The west coast will push Obama over the top at 11:00pm when their polls close.

9:35pm: CNN has called Ohio for Obama. This thing's over. Barack Obama is going to be the next President of the United States.

9:20pm: Several red states have been called: Georgia (15), Arkansas (6), Kansas, (6), Oklahoma (7) and West Virginia (5).

9:00pm: It's the 9pm blitz! Obama: Rhode Island (4), Michigan (17), Wisconsin (10), Minnesota (10), New York (31). McCain: Wyoming (3), North Dakota (3).

174/49

8:55pm: Alabama (9) goes to McCain.

8:50pm: Kay Hagen has defeated Elizabeth Dole for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina. Another huge pickup for the Dems in the Senate race.

8:40pm: CNN has called Pennsylvania (21) for Obama. This is a huge win for the Blues. This win makes McCains road to 270 considerably more difficult.

8:30pm: New Hampshire (4) for Obama. CNN is navigating the most complicated voter categorization setup I've ever seen.



8:20pm: Several Senate seats have been called, but no pickups beyond Virginia. The Senate numbers are up to 45/29.

8:05pm: MSNBC has called Pennsylvania (21) for Obama. CNN just announced that they don't have enough information to call PA yet.

8:00pm: The big 8pm projection blitz! Obama: Massachusetts (12), Illinois (21), Connecticut (7), New Jersey (15), Maine (4), Delaware (3), Maryland (10), DC (3). McCain: Oklahoma (7), Tennessee (11).

Running tally: Obama: 77 McCain 34

7:55pm: 15 states and the District close in five minutes. Every time Campbell Brown speaks, she warns us not to pay any attention to what she's saying cuz it's too early. 2000 and 2004 scared the &#%$ out of the news networks.

7:50pm: FOX and CBS have called West Virginia (5) for McCain, MSNBC is calling South Carolina (8) for McCain. The national popular vote favors Obama 54% to 46% with just under 4 Million votes reported.

7:45pm: Pictures from Grant Park in Chicago are amazing. Obama is holding a rally there tonight where he will either accept the concession of John McCain, or concede himself in the event of an upset. The numbers are expected to top 1,000,000 people there tonight. There are tens of thousands of there already.

7:30pm: North Carolina, West Virginia and Ohio are now closed. None have been projected. Indiana's numbers are coming in, and the county-by-county map is fascinating. In 2004, John Kerry carried just four counties in the state - Monroe, Marion, Lake and LaPorte. The map tonight has Obama leading in 11 counties already and the numbers are very tight - shifting back and forth between the candidates as the numbers roll in. It should be noted that Lake County, IN, which is suburban Chicago, has not yet reported. Lake County is expected to go strong for Obama.

Governor Mitch Daniels (R) of Indiana has been called as the winner in the governor's race there. Mark Warner (D) has also been called as the winner in the Virginia senate race which marks the first pickup for the Dems in the Senate.

7:15pm: CNN just "beamed" Jessica Yellin in from Chicago and stood her image there in New York like something out of Star Trek. Wolf Blitzer will hereon be referred to as "Captain Wolf".

7:00pm: CNN has called Vermont (3) for Obama and Kentucky (8) for McCain. Polls have also closed in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, the portion of Florida in the eastern time zone, and the rest of Indiana.

6:30pm: Good evening from Times headquarters in Grand Rapids, Michigan! We've been following the developments throughout the day and the big story everywhere is turnout. All across the country the lines have been long, but the voters appear generally good-spirited while they wait upwards of four or five hours in some places to cast their ballots.

The polls have closed in parts of Indiana and Kentucky. The areas of both states that are in the central time zone of those two states close at 7:00pm. Some numbers have rolled in from both Indiana and Kentucky at the time of this writing. With approximately 1% of precincts reporting, Obama holds a tight lead in Indiana and trails McCain in Kentucky. These numbers mean essentially nothing, however, especially in Indiana where suburban Chicago counties fall in the Central Time zone.

We've been watching CNN's high-definition coverage. Thankfully there's no EKG reading on the bottom of the screen telling me what 30 lunkheads in the Midwest think about the election results. They do, however, have about 65 pundits all crammed together with laptops at several different round tables.

James Carville is one of the most comical men I've ever seen.

The night rolls onward.

The final projections from FiveThirtyEight.com are showing Obama with a landslide victory on the electoral college at 348.6 to McCain's 189.4. They are also projecting Obama's likelihood of an overall win at 98.9%. This is all good news for those of us that suffered the results of the last two general elections.

So far it seems as though the major networks are being very cautious in their use of the "exit poll" data. This is good.

Wolf Blitzer is talking to a holographic lady in the "Election Center." Most of the nation can't seem to figure out how to run voting precincts with any efficiency, and Blitzer's talking to a freakin' hologram.

T-Minus...

I...know that from years of Corporatists and fundamentalists turning the word "liberal" into a code word for gays and hippies and commies you think that blue staters all want to corrupt our country and have people marrying dogs and smoking crack and burning Christmas trees. Here's the real truth we're pretty much just like you. We really, truly are.

-Adam McKay

With the exception of Sarah Palin. Oh...and that cat who dressed up like Lincoln at the RNCC. We're nothing like those crackheads. Seriously.

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It's almost over.

The 2008 presidential election that started in 2006 comes to a conclusion tomorrow when, over the course of 19 hours, Americans from Maine to Hawaii will be casting their votes for United States President as well as scores of other federal, state and local leaders. We'll also be voting on a variety of propositions ranging from gay marriage to stem cell research to the fair treatment of farm animals.

It's a pretty important day.



Brack Obama will be in Chicago, Illinois, John McCain will be in Phoenix, Arizona, Joe Biden will be in Wilmington, Delaware and Sarah Palin will be in Wasilla, Alaska. All will be voting in their home districts. Obama has a rally scheduled at Grant Park in Chicago Tuesday night and John McCain has a scheduled event at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix. McCain has announced, however, that he will not be addressing the crowd in person, but will be making a statement to the press at an undisclosed location outside the Biltmore at some point Tuesday night. Obama has announced that he will speak directly to his supporters in Grant Park.

All national polls show Obama with a sizable lead, all with the exception of one are beyond the margin of error. John McCain will have to turn several states that are leaning hard blue to his side in order to win the general election.

FiveThirtyEight.com has everything you need to know about the national poll numbers.

I'll be liveblogging throughout the night, starting at 7:00pm when the polls close in Virginia, Georgia, parts of New Hampshire and the portion of Florida that is in the eastern time zone. The portions of Indiana and Kentucky that are in the eastern time zone close at 6:00pm, but I don't expect too much information to come out of those states until the polls close statewide at 7:00pm.

Get some sleep tonight, friends. It's going to be a long day tomorrow.

Mellencamp Calls for Change

"I've seen a lot of small towns, and now I'm seeing small towns across America dying, folks losing their jobs and their homes. Eight years of George Bush has really hurt, and John McCain is just more of the same...I'm proud to support Barack Obama, because whether you live in a small town or a big city, it's time for a change."

-John Mellencamp

I grew up in a house just up the road from John Mellencamp in Bloomington, Indiana, and graduated high-school with his daughter, Michelle. John was probably our most famous local citizen at the time (Bobby Knight notwithstanding). He was (and is) a lot of things, but he cannot be described accurately as stupid under any circumstances. He's always been someone who speaks openly for the average joe in Indiana and across America. I'm pleased to see that he has predictably made the right decision by endorsing Barack Obama for president.

Mr. Mellencamp makes a lot of money - he's a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who has released 20 albums in 32 years. 10 of those albums have been certified platinum and an additional three have been certified gold. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.

John will pay more taxes under Obama than under McCain, but as an ardent populist, he clearly understands that it's not unreasonable to expect those who make more money to pay more in taxes rather than the other way around. He also realizes that even under Obama's tax plan he will pay less tax as a percentage of his income than the average middle-class family.

It's wonderful to see a "heartland" singer-songwriter who understands the plight of his neighbors and many of his fans who have felt the pain of decades of failed trickle-down policy. Mellencamp hasn't let fame and fortune change who he is as his core, and that's an Indiana-born, small-town guy.

John Mellencamp is true American through and through.

Rethinking the American Electorate after an Obama Victory

Columnist Lincoln Mitchell:

The American left...will have to do the most intriguing and challenging rethinking of basic assumptions when Obama wins. For years now a central piece of the progressive worldview is that progressives are enlightened Americans in a sea of their ignorant, bigoted and narrow-minded compatriots. If you don't believe my assertion, see how many times in the comments section of a progressive blog, Americans voters are referred to as ignorant or uninformed, or eavesdrop at any progressive coffee shop or other hangout. Opposition to progressive causes is often explained away by saying that Americans are bigots, or somehow stupid. This demonstrates an ugly contempt for voters, and in fact for democracy, that should have no place in progressive politics.

Nonetheless, this feeling of specialness is a central part of progressive identity for many. For example, the tone often used to express disbelief that Obama could win, particularly early in this campaign, was often a mixture of anger with racism and a sense of self-righteousness from the speaker for being above that racism.

November 4th will almost certainly show these beliefs to be the nonsense that they are. After November 4th, whenever somebody belittles the intelligence or tolerance of the American voter the proper response will be "What about when we elected Barack Obama?" I hope for many this will be understood to be a sign that American voters can be more progressive, enlightened and thoughtful than had previously been believed. Obama will win because willingness to vote for somebody who looks different, and whose name sounds unusual, simply because he is the best candidate, is no longer the province of elites or an educated minority. This may cause progressives to rethink much of what they thought they knew about America, but it seems a small price to pay for an Obama presidency.

I'm not on board with Mitchell's assertion that we, as progressives, blindly view ourselves as better than the conservative right.


I am one of the "coffee shop" progressives that Mr. Mitchell references. I think that the notion that we are all believers in the assumption of right-wing stupidity and/or racism is overly simplistic. I don't think them "stupid" or racist in general terms. Some may be, but that's not the majority by any means. What I see is a Republican party that has proven it is not interested in "Joe the Plumber" or "John the Lutheran" or any other common low or middle-class American for any purpose other than a vote.

With this in mind, I see so-called "right-wingers" voting for candidates belonging to a party that says one thing and does something completely different. A party that promises to promote conservative policy or social agendas, but in actuality does little or nothing in regard to those promises. It has been the policy of today's Republican party to enrich themselves and their corporate "sponsors" at the expense of the very people they lied to in order to gain their vote.

An Obama victory doesn't change any of that. It just means that a small percentage of the electorate in the middle moved to the left for this particular election cycle and voted for Obama.

This coffee-shop progressive doesn't think the right-wing is stupid as a whole. I just think that a great many Americans on the right are generally uninformed as to who and what they're REALLY voting for.
About Barack Obama

Stick a fork in him...

Last night Johnny Mac proclaimed that Governor Sarah "knows more about autism than any other American I know."

John has flung plenty of fecal matter at my person over the course of the campaign, and for the most part I've grown numb to it. It's a law of nature - Dogs don't like cats, cats like mice...a lot, the sky is blue, John McCain's campaign lies like a pedophile in front of a parole board.

When he floated the autism thing, though, I was forced to tighten my jaw, wipe the drool off of my chin and actually listen to what the old white guy was saying.

My backside tightened when I heard the Mac Daddy use the words "knows", "more", "about" and "autism" in the same sentence as "Sarah" and "Palin".

If you were to believe McCain, Palin is the finest and most admirable woman on Earth and she knows everything about anything.

If you were to do a little research on Palin, however, you'd come full-circle to that whole pedophile-parole board analogy I mentioned earlier. So when he threw autism into the ring, I immediately dropped a few choice expletives.



You see, my 5-year old daughter is high-functioning autistic & was diagnosed as such earlier this year. You may think you know a lot about autism, but unless you are actually the parent of an autistic child or have spent thousands of hours studying and spending time with autistic children, I dare say you shan't profess an expertise of the same.

Making autism a political "hot issue" is one thing, but making autism a bullshit political issue is quite another. So when the distinguished Senator from Arizona proclaims that his hapless running mate knows more about autism than any American he knows, this suggests that he's viciously lying and playing this horrible disorder for political gain, or that he hasn't met too many Americans.

I suspect the former.

Janet Grillo:

McCain claims his regime will support research for a cure. Yet he also wants to freeze government spending. He claims he will advocate for families. Yet his health care policy offers a $5000 tax deduction, which Americans can put towards purchasing coverage. Any parent with a child on the spectrum knows just how little $5000 buys you. Services to support my [autistic] son's development (outside of, and in addition to, tuition at publicly funded Special Ed day programs) easily runs past $90,000 per year. Thank God that California state-funded regional center services have absorbed the lion's share of those costs. But, as everyone knows, California is now bankrupt. Those services have been frozen. Children and parents are floundering. McCain proclaims to be a "Federalist." As often as possible, he would have individual states determine the welfare of their denizens versus Washington D.C.. If ever there were a time for the federal government to rise to the occasion of serving the needs of our people, it is this national epidemic. Twelve years ago, the rate was one in 10,000. Today (according to the NEH), it is 1 in 150. States cannot, and should not, be expected to sustain the demands this crisis presents.

Tonight, Senator Obama told us that every autism advocate he has met, stresses the urgent need to increase funding for medical research. He was right to tell the American people that this essential work will cost money. As a former board member of Cure Autism Now foundation, one of the first parent driven organizations to fund and grow bonafide, university based research, I attest to that. Piece meal tax rebates will not cover health costs for our families, as they contend with this lifelong neurological disability. Tonight, John McCain told us that Governor Palin "knows more about autism than any other American I know." Perhaps he should get out more.

I've spent the last four days straight at DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan with my daughter who landed here as a result of her condition. Mr. McCain's pathetic attempt to shine a light on the disgraceful Sarah Palin by using autism as a lever makes me physically ill, and if I had any doubt that he's shed all semblance of dignity that he may have once had, that doubt was wiped clean during last night's debate.