HorsesAss.Org

Worst. Campaign. Ever.

From Iowa State Daily:

Elborno said after seeing the people who were asked to leave, she was concerned that McCain’s staffers were profiling people on appearance to determine who might be a potential protester.

“When I started talking to them, it kind of became clear that they were kind of just telling people to leave that they thought maybe would be disruptive, but based on what? Based on how they looked,” Elborno said. “It was pretty much all young people, the college demographic.”

Elborno said even McCain supporters were among those being asked to leave.

“I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said. “They were handpicking these people and they had nothing to go off of, besides the way the people looked.”

So you think that girl is going to continue to vote for Republicans?

McPalin is alienating an entire generation with their abusive, paranoid style. Four years ago at Shrub rallies you at least had to possess something terrorist-related like a Democratic tee shirt. Now you just have to look like you might want to vote for Obama.

Truly unbelievable. Let’s hope we can put a permanent end to this iteration of the institution known as the Republican Party. They have not one redeeming feature as a major political party. If they get their clocks cleaned as we all hope, when the inevitable “what went wrong” discussions start in earnest, honest grass roots Republicans are going to need to point out that the first step is to stop being lying, paranoid, vicious morons who throw their own supporters out of rallies.

Or, you know, honest Republicans can come on over to the big Democratic tent. Friendly discussions about the appropriate marginal tax rate can be held among fellow citizens of good will. If one truly believes a certain rate is too high, we can investigate it, listen to economists argue, and legislate it and so on. That’s how it’s supposed to work. It’s called governing.

(Props to Atrios.)

The podcast begins in the WA-08 congressional district, where some journalists and a lot of Republicans don’t seem to understand academic degrees and terminology. A Harvard graduate clears matters up. From degrees to convictions…the panel scrutinizes Rep. Dave Reichert’s illegal campaign loan. Next they examine “G.O.P. Party” candidate Dino Rossi’s deposition over campaign finance law violations. (Oh…that sound you hear? It’s the gnashing of Republican teeth across the state). After a brief sojourn into presidential politics, the panel revisits the strange case of Alaska’s Uncle Ted Stevens seven traffic tickets felony convictions. The podcast closes with panelist’s predictions for the WA-08 and the gubernatorial races.

Goldy was joined by Matt Stoller of OpenLeft, Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, Publisher of the Group News Blog, Jesse Wendel, and initiative specialist Laura McClintock of McClintock Consulting.

The show is 51:36, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_oct_28_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting podcasting liberally.]

TPM reports that the McCain campaign is now sliming WA state of all places with it’s latest, ridiculous robocall:

[audio:http://blip.tv/file/get/Tpmtv-AntiObamaMcCainCampaignRobocallRunningInArizonaOctober29555.mp3]

Yup, according to McCain, we Democrats are dangerous, because we want to “give civil rights to terrorists and talk unconditionally to dictators.”  What an asshole.

And, what an idiot to waste even a fraction of a cent per call in a state he has no chance of winning.  Good thing McCain is about to get his ass kicked, because if he ran this country in any way near as disastrously as he’s run his campaign, he’d make George Bush look like George Washington.

The reason the BIAW campaign Dino Rossi campaign for governor didn’t let Goldy and Josh in to cover their press conference yesterday is because Goldy and Josh are probably Nazi communists. Who can forget this gem from the March issue of the BIAW newsletter, which Goldy had a great deal of fun with?

What environmentalists offer today, instead of the racist German National Socialism that defined the Nazi party, is an international environmental socialism, an amalgam of Nazism and communism—an international environmental socialism with a centralized planning scheme. But this amalgam is increasingly at odds with itself, causing a rift within the environmental lobby, with builders caught in the middle.

The issue really isn’t about name-calling, it’s about the constant inaccuracy of the right wing. Nobody with an ounce of common sense would try to shoehorn mainstream environmentalism into a made-up box called “an amalgam of Nazism and communism.” But they do it anyway, with any idea that strikes them as even faintly liberal, from tax policy to social policy to foreign policy, from the BIAW to the RNC to Sam the Non-Plumber.

I can never decide if it’s entirely deliberate, or if these people are just so profoundly ignorant of history they simply cannot express themselves clearly. At any rate, a vote for Dino Rossi is an endorsement of the inaccurate and inflammatory baloney being peddled at all levels of the Republican Party right now. It’s all they have left, you Swedish Islamo-Nazi-Liberal-Fascist Meatballs.

I rode up the elevator with Seattle Times editorial board member Bruce Ramsey, as we both headed to wait with the press for Dino Rossi’s news conference.  The difference was, he was escorted into the press room while I was escorted out.

Why?  I’m a “partisan blogger” I was told, while he is a legitimate member of the press.  You can read the Times’ totally, nonpartisan, impartial, objective, fair and balanced editorial here.

I don’t know if there are some in the old press who applaud these efforts to exclude new media journalists like me, but they certainly don’t seem to be standing up for us.  Josh Feit, when he was credentialed by The Stranger, had the same kind of access as Ramsey, but yesterday, a working reporter in the employ of HA and its readers, was also escorted from the building because, I suppose, he wasn’t paid by the right kind of people.

Over time, more and more journalists will be employed by nontraditional outlets like HA, and if the subjects of our reporting get to pick and choose who is a journalist and who is not, it really isn’t honest to call it “journalism” anymore, is it?

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 362 electoral votes	Mean of 176 electoral votes

Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 363 to 175 electoral votes. Obama had a 100% chance of winning an election held yesterday.

Today, there were 35 new polls representing 22 states released. The net result is a one-vote decline for Obama.

An analysis of 100,000 simulated elections shows Obama winning every one. Obama receives (on average) 362 to McCain’s 176 electoral votes. Obama still has a 100.0% probability of winning an election held now.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

It’s something you did. At times it actually was about peace and love, although it may seem strange now.

Then some people did bad things before you were born, and therefore you are all Marxists. Sins of the father you know.

If NRO, the Doughy Pantload and Eric Earling should last for a thousand years, people on the right will still babble: you are all dirty fucking hippies.

Luckily our finest hour is very nearly upon us. Never before have so many contributed to the defeat of so few.

My Phillies have just won only their second World Series in 126 years.  So be patient.

Josh and I just got kicked out of the Rossi press conference, because we’re told, no partisan bloggers allowed. I guess I understand me, but I’m paying Josh, and that, I was led to believe is what defines a working journalist.

You’d think maybe some of Josh’s colleagues might stick up for him. After all, he’s one of the few political reporters in the state still getting paid.

UPDATE:
Lowney: “Rossi more deeply involved than we knew.”

A lot of memory lapses, a lot of obstruction from Rossi’s attorneys.

—

The key meetings at heart of this complaint did involve financial matters and fundraising for a political campaign. Confirmed.

—

Will seek sanctions against Rossi’s attorney. “Most obstructive” deposition ever witnessed.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
You can read a transcript of the deposition here.

Gee, that Doug Sutherland… he sure is friendly:

Speaking to a female reporter about forest certification, Sutherland made an unprompted analogy, “You have to do things in logical sequence: you wouldn’t put your coat on to go outside, then put your underwear on. Well, I don’t know what you do with your underwear.” He laughed.

Yeah, because it’s always funny to ask a female reporter about her underwear.

Considering the recent bad press over his sexual harassment of a young, female DNR employee, you’d think when talking to young women in a professional setting, Sutherland might want to avoid commenting on their underwear.

Clearly, Sutherland has a pattern of inappropriate behavior that would make most voters uncomfortable.  Whether enough voters are aware of this, we’ll find out on Tuesday.

What time Friday do you think the bin Laden tape will show up?

Word coming out of the Dino Rossi deposition during the lunch break was that Rossi and his attorney have been totally obstructionist throughout the first half of the proceedings, refusing to answer many of attorney Knoll Lowney’s questions.  I assume that if this behavior continues through the afternoon, Lowney will ask Judge Kallas to impose sanctions, which may include additional hours of deposition.  We’ll see.

One of my favorite right wing maneuvers involves pleas for “civility” in politics. Once the righties figure out the nastiness isn’t working and they are likely to lose, some of them start insisting that the problem is a lack of civility. It’s all so utterly predictable, it strikes me as funny.

Case in point: Columbian reporter Michael Andersen has an article today about a Clark County businessman named Andrew Deal who has set up a web site urging civility in politics. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, and never mind the same dude did the same thing four years ago, to not much effect if the truth be known.  But Deal makes a claim in today’s article that bears some scrutiny:

“Four years ago, the story was about how 58 percent of the population was worried that we’d end up in court again,” said Deal, who organized a similar event in 2004. “This time, it’s 60 percent of people think that widespread voter fraud is likely.”

And now let’s go to The Google and see what we find regarding that claim about voter fraud. Hmmm. The top hit is from, of all things, Fox Noise on Oct. 22:

Most Americans think there will be extensive voter fraud in the upcoming presidential election. A FOX News poll released Wednesday shows 60 percent think it is either “very” likely, 28 percent, or “somewhat” likely, 32 percent, there will be widespread fraud in voting this year, and 35 percent think it is unlikely.

Yeah, um, okay. Since a lot of the article is about bashing ACORN, it’s pretty hard to take it seriously.

And that, my friends, is how unsubstantiated right wing bullshit gets catapulted out into the wider world, following a direct line from Drudge to Fox Noise and on down.

What’s hilarious, or pathetic actually, is that Deal’s firm, CGI Productions, is listed as being responsible for “web application development” at the bottom of the Clark County Republican Party web page.

That would be the same Clark County Republicans who, in January, felt free to post the infamous “Obama is a Muslim” smear on their web site.

I guess “civility” is all about being nice to Republicans, and letting them hate and lie to their little hearts’ content.