FELICIDADES!

Gwyneth Paltrow, or a small brown country of no consequence

In case you missed it, Salvadorans voting in Sunday's election put Mauricio Funes of the FMLN, the former rebel party, in control for the first time, ending two decades of right wing Arena party rule.

The US media didn't highlight the story, and it figures. The U.S. should be ashamed of its history with the tiny Central American country. The U.S. isn't very good at finishing things (Afghanistan, Iraq, V...) but it sure jumps into bed with plenty of nasty people for expediency sake.

Jennifer Anniston, or the CIA secretly torturing prisoners at "black sites"

According to CNN ("Leftists Claim El Salvador Presidency," a nice value-laden header):

"Mauricio Funes, a member of a political party that waged guerrilla war against the government 17 years ago, claimed the presidency of El Salvador on Sunday night." It goes on, almost in passing. "The FMLN, which is the Spanish acronym for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, was formed in late 1980 as an umbrella group for five leftist guerrilla organizations fighting a U.S.-backed military dictatorship. The guerrillas and the government signed a peace pact in 1992 and the FMLN became a legitimate political party. By some estimates, 75,000 Salvadorans died during the war."

Mauricio Funes, or the cast of "Friends"

Bury that below the fold. A newsreader might stumble upon the phrase "U.S.-backed military dictatorship" in a country where "75,000 Salvadorans died." It's kind of messy and requires explanation, and we Americans (Norteamericanos, that is) are so busy, go, go, go. We don't have time for the follow-up story. Or the backstory, for that matter. Or history in general.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, or thousands of "disappeared" dissidents

Dictatorships are depressing, and our attention span is short. News crews need to cover more important things, such as the ongoing love story of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and poor jilted Jennifer Aniston. Or the woman with octuplets. Or anything that affects our pocketbooks, and jostles our Comfort Zone. Besides, news needs to be flashy to compete with "America's Most Idle" and "Big Fat Loser." A few important stories slide.

Don't get me wrong. The El Salvador story is out there. But not nearly as prominently displayed as one would think considering our history propping up this quasi-fascist police state for so many years. I'm not naive; I don't expect the news to trumpet shameful episodes of our past, but I expect some sense of recognition and historical responsibility, especially regarding conditions we've helped create. We can be a force for great good, or we can continue to support convenient bullies, and we won't know the difference without a truly independent news media asking tough questions.

Julia Roberts or nameless Salvadoran exercising democracy

Jack Kennedy once said that those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable. In this rare instance, the revolution was peaceful and that should be celebrated.

¡El Cambio es Hoy!

ONE MORE DAY

vote.

ONE MORE DAY (OF ELECTION ANXIETY)

In case you're just tuning in, this is the final day of the 2008 presidential campaign. Here's a wonderful one minute recap:

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Tomorrow is election day. Everyone I know is filled with election anxiety. What can you do? Drink too much, eat unwisely, scream at the television, lose sleep. These coping skills have always worked for me, but I'm sure there are better ways to deal with stress. Yoga, for example, or taking a walk, or talking to your plants. (My plants seem to be responding well to sarcasm and hurled invectives) Tomorrow night I'll be watching the election returns with some close friends, and I don't just mean Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels. Real friends. That will be a good way to weather the storm. A roller-coaster is always more fun with a group of people.

Larry David, neurotic creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, is also having trouble coping:

"I can't take much more of this...I'm at the end of my rope. I can't work. I can eat, but mostly standing up...Five times a day I'll still say to someone, 'I don't know what I'm going to do if McCain wins.'" --For more of David's election anxiety, click here.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, poll workers could say you're not on the rolls. Your eligibility could be challenged. The voting equipment itself could malfunction. The lines could be long.

According to the Huffington Post, already over 80,000 people have complained about voting problems. "Barbara Anwine of the Election Protection Coalition (1-866-OUR-VOTE), a nonpartisan group, told MSNBC about voter suppression tactics they have witnessed around the country."



If you experience any election day mishaps, click here. Or call the US Department of Justice (800-253-3931).

Make sure your vote counts--read this article in the Daily Journal here.

TWO DAYS MORE!

If you're like me, you love musicals. The footlights and the greasepaint, the synchronized high-kicking, people breaking into song for no apparent reason! My girlfriend Wendy and I often entertain dinner guests while dressed as characters from "Cats!" and we bring down the house singing "Memory" while tossing Almond Roca from a fake litter box. We also do a killer "Les Miserables," and when I leap over the couch waving the red banner for "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" there's not a dry eye in the house.

Okay, that's not true. Not a word. But we do like musicals. Some, however, are better than others.

The musical above is from John McCain. It's definitely not "Les Mis," which I'm sure Sarah Palin would call communistic with its peasants and revolution and subversive talk of spreading the wealth. You betcha. And french, besides! Thanks but no thanks.

Palling around with terrorists

Only two more days, and I'm a nervous wreck. The poll numbers look good for Obama, and the McCain/Palin propaganda doesn't seem to be working...and yet I'm anxious about last minute dirty tricks and possible election fraud or "mistakes" with ballots.

It's been quite a battle--not just the past twenty-one months, but years, decades. With a good voter turnout and no outright election chicanery (see posting on election theft here), Tuesday could bring us closer to economic justice, affordable housing, universal health care, genuine environmental protection, and ending the war. I'm not naive, just hopeful. I realize the enemy is entrenched, the institutions are self-perpetuating, and the powerful have a vested interest in resisting meaningful change.

But I'm hopeful. Keep your fingers crossed. And vote.


A scene from "Les Miserables," a musical Sarah Palin would call socialistic for its message of class war and spreading the wealth. Viva la revolution!

HOMER SIMPSON VOTES!

PALIN IS AN IDIOT

As you know, the Republicans have been hiding Sarah Palin from interviewers (28 days without a single news conference since her selection), and with good reason: she's dumb as a sack of hammers. After a high profile "meeting with world leaders," which was basically a photo-op with no press allowed, she was prepped in seclusion and jammed with talking points like the Manchurian Candidate, but still managed to sound woefully uninformed in an interview with Charles Gibson.

She sounded even worse in an interview with Katie Couric, which ran Wednesday and Thursday nights. Here's a clip...and yes, I'm rubbing it in. Coming on the heels of the McCain attempt to postpone his debate with Obama--and to bump the Palin/Biden debate completely--it all begins to make sense why they hid Palin from the press for so long.

In the words of today's Los Angeles Times, "if she's lucky, few are listening."

"The Alaska governor defended her puzzling claim that geographic proximity makes her some sort of expert on Russia; went nearly blank when queried about McCain's achievements as a big-business regulator; agreed America 'may find itself' on the road to another Great Depression; and, promoting a troop surge in Afghanistan, casually suggested that it 'will lead us to victory there, as it has proven to have done in Iraq.'" - LA Times, 9/26/08

dumb and dumber?

Here's Palin's confused (and confusing) take on the bailout:

" . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh -- it's got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."

Sure, it's a jumbled mess. The problem is, there are plenty of dumb people out there...and if they link up with the confused, and connect with the folks who are too racist to ever vote for a black man, then Palin and McCain might have a chance of winning. God, I hope not.

For the LA Times article, click HERE.

HOW CONSERVATIVES RULE

Thomas Frank talks about his latest book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. Frank is the author of What's the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.

Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and President George W. Bush

"Fantastic misgovernment of the kind we have seen is not an accident, nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, all that follows: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we've come to expect from Washington." -Thomas Frank

Frank spoke at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, and was filmed by PDX Justice; check out their site for a wonderful archive of political and social thinkers. To read an excerpt of the book, click HERE.

SAY GOODNIGHT, HILLARY

I guess it wasn't Hillary's fault she made those ill-advised remarks about the RFK assassination as a reason for remaining in the race. It was Obama's fault. That's the spin from the Hillary camp, anyway.

From the Washington Post:

"Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign accused Sen. Barack Obama's campaign of fanning a controversy over her describing the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy late in the 1968 Democratic primary as one reason she is continuing to run for the presidency.

"The Obama campaign tried to take these words out of context," Clinton campaign chairman Terence R. McAuliffe said on "Fox News Sunday." "She was making a point merely about the time line."

Hillary, please. Mathematically, the game is nearly over. Try keeping a shred of dignity. Say goodnight, Hillary.

75,000 TURN OUT FOR OBAMA IN OREGON!

Yesterday, over 75,000 people jammed Tom McCall's Waterfront Park in Portland to support Barrack Obama. This was his largest rally of the campaign, and a record turnout for my home state of Oregon.
The Obama momentum is obvious. Finally, we're moving beyond squabbling within the Democratic party, and we're preparing to battle Republican John McCain -- and the bankrupt policies of George W. Bush. It's about time.

Obama in Portland

Tuesday is the Oregon primary. Hey ho, let's go!

SAY GOODNIGHT, HILLARY

Hillary knocks back one for the road. After Tuesday, when she got trounced by Barrack Obama in North Carolina and had a slimmer than expected victory in Indiana, even some former supporters urged her to quit the race. Former Hillary supporter George McGovern switched his support to Obama, and called for her to quit the campaign trail for the good of the party and the country. Many fear the Democrats will destroy each other, and only strengthen the Republicans.

So far, Hillary has ignored calls to leave the race gracefully. She is demanding that the votes be counted in Florida and Michigan, where Obama wasn't even on the ballot. She is busy spinning recent events her way, and tossing a few questionable remarks at Obama:

" 'I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,' she said in an interview with USA Today. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article 'that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states (those voting in Tuesday's Indiana and North Carolina primaries) who had not completed college were supporting me.' " - quoted from the LA Times

For more on Hillary's dwindling options, click HERE. And HERE.

CLINTON WINS PENNSYLVANIA PRIMARY

Hillary won the Pennsylvania primary. She will win, I should say, since C-Span was declaring her the winner a little while ago with only two percent of the vote in. When I switched on the TV around 6pm, the count was something like 52% to 48%. How can they make a safe prediction? Help me with the math.

There is a problem with calling an election too early. Remember the photograph of the victorious Truman displaying the newspaper declaring him the loser?

The Pennsylvania victory comes as no surprise to anyone. Hillary was expected to take the state, in spite of Obama reducing her double digit lead. Will the winning margin be sufficient to do her any good? She will pick up some delegates and stay in the race, but the nomination will still depend on the Super delegates, the American equivalent of the House of Lords, who may or may not reflect the popular vote. Perhaps our goal of promoting democracy should begin at home, and we should abolish this "corrective" to the will of the people.

On to the future. We can only hope the Democrats don't completely destroy one another before they fight the Republicans. Democrats have a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.


According to the Huffington Post, exit polls show Obama improved among whites and older voters, but Clinton won the late deciders. Two/thirds say Hillary unfairly attacked Obama, and that most expect Obama to be the nominee. Not surprisingly, Obama did well with educated and urban voters, and Clinton swept the bitter small towns.

Read the article by clicking here.

PUNCH & JUDY ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

First off, any Democrat would make a better president than George W. Bush, but that's not saying much. A shoehorn would make a better president. A shoehorn wouldn't lie to us, drag us into war, bankrupt us, whittle away our civil liberties, award no-contest contracts to friends, and continually dick us over while wearing a smug arrogant smirk.

Bush is the worst president I can remember, and that includes Republican crook "Tricky Dick" Nixon. If the Democrats can't win this time, they should cash in their chips and permanently retire to Loserville.

That being said, I'm ticked off with the Hillary camp. We received a group email from a Hillary supporter yesterday filled with the same old talking points warning us against smooth-talking, hope-inspiring Obama. He's all talk, she said, going on to mention that Adolph Hitler was also a powerful orator. Sleazy, eh?


The group email brought up Hillary's usual "concerns" about Obama's lack of experience. True, he was never First Lady. Obama is a first term senator. Hillary is only a second term senator. Even her point man Bill Clinton can't argue that. That is not a huge experience gap. Her USO junket with Sindbad the comic hardly counts, whether she dodged mortar-fire or not. She did not.

Predictably, Hillary hammers away at her talking points. That repetition -- and the occasional dirty trick from the Karl Rove playbook -- has helped her in certain polls. She still lags, but she seems to be casting doubt among the timid.


Is Hillary better qualified than Obama? Is Obama all talk? Who can best beat McCain? What about the roll of the superdelegates? What about the battleground states? Should we count the Florida and Michigan votes? Who should answer the scary phone call in the middle of the night?

Matt Taibbi does a good job answering these questions in the current issue of Rolling Stone. To read his article, "Hillary's Flimsy Case," please click here.

MEASURING THE LIMBAUGH EFFECT

Stop me if you've heard this one. What's the difference between the Hindenburg and Rush Limbaugh?

One is a huge Nazi gasbag.

The other is a dirigible.

Okay, this is an update on a story we ran a while back about Rush urging Republicans in Texas to cross over and vote for Hillary in the primary, thereby stopping the Obama momentum and insuring the Democratic Punch and Judy Show continues. The New York Times political blog gives us this report here.

BIG FAT IDIOT TAKES CREDIT

Conservative gasbag Rush Limbaugh claimed some credit today for Hillary Clinton's victories in Texas and Ohio.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, "Limbaugh spent much of his show Monday exhorting Republican listeners to cross over and vote in the Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton to prevent Democrats from unifying around Barack Obama as Republicans have done around John McCain.

'What we did, if we did anything, is to create a bunch of chaos in the Democrat Party and it worked,' Limbaugh said."

For more, see the Sun-Times article here.