Why I Hate CNN

Yes, clearly this is breaking news. And requires a spiraling yellow background. And an exclamation point after the headline!

I mean, sure, this is the politics page, and we are amidst the biggest political scandal in decades, and there are major presidential transition announcements today. But OMG ITS SNOWING!!1!

MSNBC's Dirty Trick

MSNBC may be viewed as the liberal equivalent to Fox News, but for a "liberal" network, the following really angered me today.

They had a video posted called, "Parents horrified as kids show up in gay ad." What does that make you think the story is about? First, I think of homophobia - of a great fear of the gays. And I think that the story is probably about gay groups manipulating children somehow, destroying America's families one at a time.

Turns out that it is regarding Prop 8 in California, which seeks to ban gay marriage in that state. Only the ad is for Prop 8, meaning AGAINST gay marriage rights. The kids in question showed up in an anti-gay rights, homophobic ad, not in a "gay ad."

And as it turns out, the scummy, small-minded advertisers didn't even do anything illegal. They used footage of kids attending a gay wedding, which is legal in California, where for political campaigns public footage can be used without the permission of the people in the video.

Thanks, MSNBC, for letting your true colors show in your own false advertising of this "news story."

Sarah Palin and the Courage To Be Uninformed

Okay, so I said I wouldn't have time for posting this weekend, but this was too much to pass up. Palin told a crowd at a N.C. fundraiser that her staff has advised her against watching campaign news at it would likely depress her.

All I'm going to say is: after eight years of a president who is so drastically out of touch - not just with the concerns of average Americans and the challenges they face each day, but with reality itself - who has been living in a staff-induced fantasy about the state of our economy, illegal occupations of foreign lands, and the environment - and who from day one hasn't had a fucking clue what to do in that highest of offices in which he sits whilst not on vacation in Texas - this is the last thing America, or the world, needs right now. This is W. all over again, only with less experience and female anatomy. We could not make a more stupid choice then electing this woman to anything above dog catcher.

And one more thing - people like Palin and Bush - fundamentalist religious zealots - their whole existence is built on the steady and unquestioned rejection of information and facts and the incredible ability to make up their own world, or, more accurately, to listen to someone else's made up bullshit and accept it as the truth, despite glaring objections, because they are just that. f'ing. stupid. They are that cowardly that they cannot face reality. They cannot accept the world in which people actually live. They live in fantasy, with the unfortunate ammendment that they often affect the real world in very serious ways. Not this time. Maybe in 4 years from now, or 8 or 12. But not today.

How Long Till This McCain Ad Hits?

In response to Fox's request that the World Series game 6 be delayed 15 minutes so they can air Obama's national, 30 minute ad, the RNC said, "It’s unfortunate that the World Series’ first pitch is being delayed for Obama’s political pitch... Not only is Obama putting politics before principle, he’s putting it before our national pastime.”

Can't you just hear McCain's next ad?


He was the biggest celebrity in the world... But now, when America grows tired of his rhetoric, he decided to postpone the World Series. HOW DISHONORABLE. Barack Obama wants our citizens to engage in political discourse, instead of watching a sporting event and forgetting about the economy. HOW UNAMERICAN. If you can't trust Senator Obama to not steal your TV show, how can you trust him to run our country? BARACK OBAMA - A dangerous choice, who'll *change* nothing but the channel. "I'm John McCain and I approve this message because nobody touches the flipper in MY house except ME."


Because you know he still calls it a "flipper."

White Men Are Just the *Worst*

Seriously. Look at this data from today's Diageo/Hotline tracking poll:

- Obama maintained his 48-42% lead from yesterday's release. The WH contest also remains largely status quo among men, while women (including white women) appear to be breaking more towards Obama.

- Among all men, Obama leads by 1% -- exactly his margin one week ago, in the survey completed 10/6. Among women, however, Obama's lead has grown from 3% to 12% over the same period.

- The same trends are evident among whites. McCain today leads white men by 11% -- exactly his margin one week ago. Among white women, however, the GOP nominee's advantage has fallen from 12% to 6%.

I think that, because the right to vote by minorities and women was curtailed for so long, white men should be barred from voting for the next 50 years. During that time, we would have approximately 12.5 democratic terms in the White House, and about 435 Democratic congressmen and, mostly, women. And women would make equal pay, and have guaranteed pregnancy leave, and there would be gay marriage, and the minority-white education gap would close, and the new flag would be a giant smiley face, and the national anthen would be "Always Be My Baby" by Mariah Carey.

Editor's Note: While writing this it didn't occur to me that I am, in fact, a white male. AT LEAST THATS WHAT SOCIETY IS TELLING ME. DOWN WITH THE MAN.

Electoral College: 6 Weeks Left!

Six weeks from tomorrow, Americans will stumble clueless into polling booths across our nation and vote for one of two "meh" candidates based on a completely arbitrary, last-minute decision. And though they all will feel important and democratic, only people in a few of these states are actually going to matter. Here is my take of the states that could actually make a difference. Some of the states I've coded blue or red could flip, but - for example - if McCain wins Pennsylvania, chances are he wins by a landslide anyway.

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NEVADA (dead heat) - Nevada is probably the last real swing state left out West. Obama has a lock on N.M., unless it comes out that he is gay or something, and Colorado is probably gonna swing his way, too. Nevada is pretty much a dead heat. WashPost's Cillizza says that from 2004 to now, registration has gone from favoring Republicans by 4,000 to favoring Democrats by 40,000. But if we were going to use that do make decisions, this election would be a landslide. A lot of folks changed for the high-profile democratic caucuses but still may vote for McCain (particularly the 51% who went with Clinton). I say it's a dead heat.

MICHIGAN (leans Obama) - Should go for Obama. If Obama loses Michigan he will almost certainly lose the election. And yet I keep it in this category because it has been much closer than it should be in the polls, and it wouldn't be impossible for Obama to lose here but keepthe election close with wins out West or in Virginia.

OHIO (leans McCain) - Like Obama in Michigan, if McCain loses Ohio, it's probably a done deal. Both of these midwestern states will probably stay where they were in 2004 - blue and red, respectively - unless one of the candidates gains a much bigger advantage on the economy than either currently has.

FLORIDA (barely McCain) - This state has gone from looking pretty solidly red to more of a dead heat as of late. I've been reading a lot of experts who think that it will be closer than people have predicted. Palin probably hurts McCain with two groups - Jewish and older voters - whereas Biden probably helps Obama with both of these. And as the economy collapses around us, Obama calling McCain out on social security privatization is a great strategy that could really hurt McCain here. Again, McCain needs to win this shit if he is gonna have a chance at the election.

VIRGINIA (dead heat) - I've always thought that strategists had been overly optimistic about Obama's chances here, but Virginia was probably the one state that stayed consistent through the post-RNC/Palin bump McCain enjoyed. Through all of that, the polls here stayed the same, with McCain never up by more than two points or so. Add that to increased democratic enthusiasm and registration, and I'd say that Virginia has to be considered a toss-up right now.

NEW HAMPSHIRE (dead heat) - The Granite State may be extremely anti-war, but it's also very anti-tax, and this election is not about Iraq or foreign policy; it's about the economy. With folks here looking at their wallets as they head in to vote, I would not be surprised at all to see a McCain win here, even in a democratic year.

ANALYSIS - Obama remains the frontrunner, and if the race is close, it will probably come down to who can close the deal in these few key states. If I had to call them right now, I'd say Nevada, Ohio, and Florida for McCain; NH, Virginia, and Michigan for Obama, which would be an Obama victory.

Most Ever?

There have been a ton of claims this election - mostly, SHOCKER, from the GOP - that one thing or other about this campaign is the "most ever" in history.  Quite-former-Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Couch) said the other day that Obama would be the "most anti-gun president" in history, and the GOP has said that he would also be the most liberal president ever elected; these are but two of ten thousand such claims made.  I tend not to believe most of them coming from either side because, well, nothing brings out drama queens like a national election.

And yet, I can't help to pose this question myself - might the McCain-Palin ticket be the most exploitative major ticket towards women in history?  It's hard to imagine a campaign objectifying women as much as this campaign has in picking her because they thought they could trick women into voting for the ticket, or demeaning women as much as they have with these false and utterly insane charges of sexism, not to mention the damage that a McCain-Palin administration would do towards women's liberation in this country.

I think that you could safely say, this campaign has already set women back a decade in this country, as they have made it much more difficult for a pro-women female candidate to get a presidential nod already.  If they win, given the possibility of several supreme court appointments, they will literally set women - and with that, our nation as a whole - back 50 years.

Or maybe I'm just being dramatic.

How is Palin More Sexist Than Me? Let Me Count the Ways...

Even though their campaign would love for you to think that she is a feminist idol, and everyone that stands in their way hates all women, Sarah Palin is a sexist hypocrite who happens to be an idiot. Here are but a few of the ways in which Palin is much more sexist than, say, me:

1. I do not believe that young women's lives should be risked by not informing them how to have safe sex in our schools.

2. I do not believe in teaching our young people, in public classrooms, creationism - a religious interpretation of the Bible which stresses female subordination to men and a heteronormative, repressed role for women within society.

3. I do not believe in criminalizing a women for choosing to have an abortion (despite my own moral questions on the matter) because I don't think that American women should be forced to pump out babies because of other people's moral and religious beliefs.

3 1/2. ...and I especially find it crucial that women whose lives are in danger or who faced the horrors of rape and incest should not be told that their duty to have kids outweighs their right to make decisions so greatly affecting their lives.

4. I am against a legal code that rewards women for having babies but punishes them for having a job.

5. I am against a tax system that only benefits women if they maintain heteronormative gender roles, i.e. marrying a man and having children, and support a tax code that does not reward childbirth and that is equally fair to women married to other women.

6. I find it reprehensible that someone would try to manipulate women into supporting them based on their gender, as if women are just smart enough to pick out a fellow female but not smart enough to know about the issues. Sarah Palin finds this to be a career.

7. I do not use the idea of a women's liberation movement to progress a decidedly anti-feminist agenda, thereby demeaning women who are fighting for equal rights and social understanding.

8. I also don't use masculinity to criminalize people, as Sarah Palin did in her cries against the "Good Ol' Boys" of Alaskan politics. I think that all GOP Alaskan politicians are equally guilty of being horrible, special-interest-serving slime buckets, regardless of their gender.

9. I did not expect Hillary Clinton to be America's representation of a woman, as Sarah Palin did when she said Clinton's claims of sexism were giving all women a bad name...

10. ...and I also did not call Hillary Clinton a "bitch," at least not to a kindly waitress named Lucille.

And keep in mind that I am an asshole. Just think about how much less sexist good human beings must be than Sarah Palin.

McCain's Record

Check out this video on John McCain's record on gay civil liberty issues, and then realize why I consider it a personal insult to me and all queer Americans if you vote for this guy...



PS, if you're one of the gays I know who is not behind Obama... what the fuck are you thinking? Honestly.

We like the gays (but not in a gay way)

The way that the candidates have been treating the queer community this election season has already been.... interesting. The democrats, while forced for the first time to go to an LGBT-specific question and answer forum, have been largely trying to ignore the issue. All of them are "friendly" towards queer issues - but not that friendly. Civil unions, fine; gay marriage, well, let's not get carried away, you silly gays. John McCain has also been staying away from this realm of issues, probably because (a) it reminds conservatives of one of the areas in which they hate him, and (b) conservative positions will probably hurt him w/ some indy voters and not really help him much w/ others.

Enter: California's confusing decision to overturn the law banning gay marriage. Confusing because... I don't really get what that means. A source tells me that this means Ellen Degeneres and Portia di Rossi are getting married. But the decision just makes it not illegal for queers to marry, it doesn't make it legal for them to do so. Which makes my head hurt (that, and fading of last night's vodka.)

Regardless, their have been a whole slew of op-eds and whatnot saying that this apparently means social issues are back on the table. In case you forgot, Republicans used the fear of gay marriage to get out the vote in 2004 and reelect that retarded ape who serves as America's president. And now that gays have reminded old white Southerners that they exist, the old white Southerners are going to stop at nothing until McCain gets elected and doesn't do what they want, anyway, because he is crazy and senile.

All I know is, when Obama is the nominee, he will have some work to do with the gay community, which for whatever reason has never really warmed to him. Clinton has had the lead in this department from early on. Leading Edwards wasn't hard, as he had those comments about him being uncomfortable with gays lurking always above his head. But I think a lot of LGBT felt better with Clinton because gay guys are often more comfortable with women than with men (for a whole host of psychological reasons I won't worry about while hung over) and for queer women I think that Clinton's challenges breaking gender stereotypes was probably something they could relate to. It is interesting that Clinton did so much better with these voters, even though their positions on LGBT issues are pretty much the same, so you'd think that gay voters would split between them roughly with the same ratio that voters nationwide did.

At least if gay marriage ends up dooming another election, we will have a new state to blame for fucking everything up. Florida, you may be off the hook this year.

On hubris, and idiots

You'd think given the high unpredictability of this election so far (no one would have predicted McCain and Obama a year ago), people would quit with the "I just KNOW" statements. I mean, a lot of people are still pretty embarrassed that the sure-thing, practically-an-incumbent candidate Hillary Clinton seems to have no path to the nomination short of Obama dying or worshiping a golden calf in the streets. This is based on political fact and expert analysis, not my own version of what I want reality to be.

After so many people said for months now - despite the fact that Clinton's campaign has continued to crumble - that she would find a way to bounce back, that she ALWAYS does, that there's no way Obama will beat her, you'd think that these people would be sufficiently embarrassed by their pathetic analysis to give it a break. Admit that they were wrong, that Obama proved surprisingly strong and that Clinton made some major mistakes (not contesting caucus states, going too negative, lying, allowing Bill to speak), and agree to see where the election goes from here.

But instead, many of these same people who look like douches for giving snide smiles and saying, "oh, Hillary will win, don't you worry," have now moved, without blinking an eye, to "well there's no WAY Obama will win in November." Yes - your candidate lost, so there is no way on earth that the other candidate could possibly accomplish anything. You ignored facts and instead were motivated in your opinions only by your desires and made ridiculous predictions, and now are deciding to do the same thing again.

Obama does not have an easy road to the White House; both he and Clinton are somewhat to the left in a generally center-right country (though I would hesitate before calling Clinton a liberal). And McCain, for all his faults, is a decent candidate for the Republicans to field. So it was never going to be easy. But for people to continue to discount him after that same approach just proved them very wrong (and mirrors the attitude of the Clinton camp that actually lost the election)? That's just stupid.

Clinton was a force so strong that only her own hubris could undue her. And it did. And a lot of her supporters seem keen on following suit.