Thoughts on election day

Right now whilst awaiting the results, I feel like I've just died and am in limbo waiting to see if the elevator goes up or down. I wonder if I can pay Charon for the boat ride with these cucumber slices on my eyes...

Being pissed off at Obama for not fixing the damage caused by Bush as the final insult of thirty years of Repug greed in two years is like finding a rare old English motorcycle under a rotten 40-year-old pile of hay bales in a barn and being pissed off because you can't ride it the same day. Illogical, to say the least.

Repugs may take control of the House after today. I'm sure that if when they screw everything up even worse over the next two years, our rocket scientist voters will elect even more of them to fix it even worse. Yeesh. Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results...

Also, if you haven't read "Matt Taibbi on the Tea Party", do so.

Update:

Me 'n Mrs. G voted at 11AM, nos. 109 & 110. We had to stand in line, which is unheard of around here, and people just kept coming.

Our old cardboard-and-trash-bag voting booths have gone the way of the buffalo, replaced with circular booths with red, white, and blue steel poles with blue and red curtains in which maybe four people can vote at one time. The booths are from Ireland. I guess American voting booth jobs have been outsourced.

I used the electronic machine. It's got a wheel that scrolls you from place to place, an 'enter' button, and a printout that appears to let you double check your selections before you cast your ballot. I didn't have my reading glasses with me, so the poll worker assigned nearest the machine, a gorgeous young thing about my own age, loaned me her own bifocals right off her face so I could read it.

As she handed me my "I voted" sticker, I mentioned the turnout thus, "Boy, ya put weed on the ballot, Truckee turns out, huh?". She just smiled and nodded and said "Yeah, they sure do!". Heh.

As an informal poll, I checked bumper stickers in the parking lot. The cars that had them all had Librul-type stickers. I guess Repugs don't like to advertise. There was one contractor truck with Nevada plates with a "Sandoval for governor" sticker. That's his problem. Musta been there on business as our polling place is at the Public Utility District building.

Anyway, I voted straight D and legal weed and yes or no on a buncha other propositions and a few local offices that I gave a shit about. Mrs. G was waiting outside for me after I waited inside for her for a little while.

It's all over but the counting. Seeing as how the 2012 election countdown doesn't start 'til tomorrow, I'm taking the rest of the day off from politics. Unless something interesting pops up, of course...

Exactly the same ...

Just go read Drifty:

...

Because after six years, two failed wars and a smashed global economy later we on the Left are watching exactly the same coalition of intractably ignorant bedwetters, religious bigots and racist yahoos who are still freebasing exactly the same toxic witchbag of Hate Radio and Fox News lies, slander and fake patriotism about to march into the same exactly the same polling places to double down on their democracy-killing insanity and prove once again how proudly impervious to facts and reason they really are.

...

Same old song and dance and the sheeple fall for it every time.

Voting ...

As we've said around here for the last few months, voting for Dems this cycle is generally distasteful, but the alternative is much worse. Get out and vote now.

Update:

Electronic voting machines in NY this year. Don't know if I'm happy about it, but it was a lot less hassle than the old museum pieces we used to have. Once again, the Mrs. and I were #3 and #4 at our local polling place. Gotta start getting up earlier to beat my neighbor there next year. Heh ...

Scares me...

Digby

A reader sent in this extremely apt quote for a Halloween night by none other than HP Lovecraft from 1936:

“As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.”

Boo.

"...these are cynical, awful times right now"

The Rude One on the Rally For Sanity:

...it was meant to be a little something for the fans at the end of a brutal, awful campaign season where Hope got raped by Hate

(That sign above was on a park police horse trailer in DC on Saturday. It apparently fell over onto the ramp when the doors opened, and a horse shit on Glenn Beck's face. The Rude Pundit hopes it was a commentary by the cops on the previous rally on the Mall. Tip o' the rude hat to pal Dean T. for the photo [and the weekend lodging].)

Smart horse.

Re-Bush

Tony Peyser

Ex-Girlfriend Of Clarence Thomas: He Was A Mean Dry Drunk Who Exercised Obsessively & Couldn’t Concentrate On Work
...

He’s unfit to be on the Supreme Court
But each & every allegation
Proves that he’s ready for the GOP’s
2012 presidential nomination.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Bush's Biggest Disappointment: Not Privatizing Social Security
Or the National Guard.

KKK Holds First Public Cross Burning in 50 Years
Anticipating Republican sweep in mid-terms.

Quote of the Day

MoDo on Obama via Mr. Aravosis:

It never occurred to the Icon that such wildness and gullibility would trump lofty rationality.

And it'll come back to bite him in the ass tomorrow.

Accusations ...

Comrade Misfit has a great post up that should be read by everyone before they go (or not go) to the polls tomorrow.

I accuse the Republican party of actively working to sabotage the Federal government, including the destruction of Social Security and Medicare.

I accuse the Democratic party of craven collaboration with the saboteurs of the GOP. I accuse the Democratic party of lacking the spine and courage to stand up to the saboteurs.

This is my brief.

...

Believe me, I'm holding my nose tomorrow when I vote for some of these characters, but we can't let the Rethugs win. We can't afford it.

Real simple ...

People who don't have jobs don't give a shit about the deficit. They care about staying in their houses, keeping the lights on and the water running, and not going broke if somebody in the family gets sick. It'd be nice if the talking heads could wrap their brains around that fact.

Whaddaya mean ...

It's dangerous?

Click pic to change from a 20mm to a 155 shell.

It's a bloody cigarette lighter.

Security took this away from me when we boarded the ship after visiting Tsarina Katrina's Summer Palace outside St. Petersburg, Russia. They gave it back when we disembarked in England.

And just a note: If I'da known I'd get hassle over this, I woulda bought the old grenade too. Heh ...

A Modern U.S. President

A little Pirates Of Penzance-inspired comic opera frivolity for your Sunday enjoyment.

Thanks to omovies.

Headline of the Day

Why We Filed Racketeering Charges Against Karl Rove’s Election Operations

Because you couldn't declare him an enemy combatant?

Silence Of The Lambs

Good rant at TPJMagazine.

“To survive, one must be harmless as doves — but wise as serpents.” That was the admonition from Christ to followers, whom he called “sheep.” The instruction is fitting to all humans, regardless of ideology. What if the lambs no longer are informed against the tyrannical wolves about to devour them? What if they are unable to discern between a regular sheep and a wolf dressed up as one of their own? That’s America’s Achilles Heel. If any element takes down this great nation, the religious right it will be… for their chronic naivety and gullibility.

The FOX guarding the hen house is another metaphor apropos, since FOX is the principal right-wing propagandist and the chickens are the naïve, religious right that empowers any scoundrel that mouths their sacred lingo. Satan would be welcome in their churches if only groomed to look like them and coached to speak like them.

Not only have they vowed to tear down government, they’ve promised to take down the President. Republicans will investigate the hell out of Barack Obama, find nothing, but continue probing until he’s out of office. They’re committed to making life miserable in America.

It's working...

Nothing was done by Bush for the public’s welfare and the best long-term interests of the United States. We sit in economic depression as testament to his legacy. Yet the blind sheep still admire the false shepherd that led them over the cliff and are eager to throw the new shepherd to the wolves if given the chance.

A nation that slides backward into Third World governance will soon manifest a Third World economy. That’s the lesson that should have been learned from the Bush years. There is no escaping more national tragedy if the lambs again welcome back the wolves.

Reference is to Isaiah 11:6 - "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb". One of them will always be freshly BF'ed and the other will be well fed.

The Grand Old Plot Against the Tea Party

Daddy Frank on how the teabaggers have been and will continue to be worked like a redheaded stepchild by the GOP elite.

ONE dirty little secret of the 2010 election is that it won’t be a political tragedy for Democrats if a Tea Party icon like Sharron Angle or Joe Miller ends up in the United States Senate. Angle, now synonymous with racist ads sliming Hispanics, and Miller, already on record threatening a government shutdown, are fired up and ready to go as symbols of G.O.P. extremism for 2012 and beyond.

But whatever Tuesday’s results, this much is certain: The Tea Party’s hopes for actually affecting change in Washington will start being dashed the morning after. The ordinary Americans in this movement lack the numbers and financial clout to muscle their way into the back rooms of Republican power no matter how well their candidates perform.

Trent Lott, the former Senate leader and current top-dog lobbyist, gave away the game in July. “We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,” he said, referring to the South Carolina senator who is the Tea Party’s Capitol Hill patron saint. “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.” It’s the players who wrote the checks for the G.O.P. surge, not those earnest folk in tri-corner hats, who plan to run the table in the next corporate takeover of Washington. [...]

What the Tea Party ostensibly wants most — less government spending and smaller federal deficits — is not remotely happening on the country club G.O.P.’s watch. The elites have no serious plans to cut anything except taxes and regulation of their favored industries. [...]

Aw, hell, Pop, tell us something we don't know.

But those Americans, like all the others on the short end of the 2008 crash, have reason to be mad as hell. And their numbers will surely grow once the Republican establishment’s panacea of tax cuts proves as ineffectual at creating jobs, saving homes and cutting deficits as the half-measures of the Obama White House and the Democratic Congress. The tempest, however, will not be contained within the tiny Tea Party but will instead overrun the Republican Party itself, where Palin, with Murdoch and Beck at her back, waits in the wings to “take back America” not just from Obama but from the G.O.P. country club elites now mocking her. By then — after another two years of political gridlock and economic sclerosis — the equally disillusioned right and left may have a showdown that makes this election year look as benign as Woodstock.

Oh fucking swell. I hope I live long enough.

Sunday Homebrew Crazy Redneck Music Video Blogging

Tony Rice is lead vocal on a country version of The Grateful Dead's "Friend of the Devil" from the CD "Rice, Rice, Hillman, and Pedersen".

Video is southbound on CA SR 267 across Martis Valley.

Thanks to ME!

Robocalls

We've been getting GOTV robocalls hot 'n heavy. Mrs. G got 'em from Leonardo DiCaprio and Doris Roberts (both Dem). The one I answered was from fucking Grover Norquist. I yelled 'FUCK YOU' loud enough I hope it blew the fuckin' machine off the desk at Dickhead Central. Yeesh.

Rally For Sanity

‘Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear’ draws tens of thousands to National Mall

According to one 'comment', "F**News said there were 'dozens' in attendance". Hell, man, there were 90,000,000!

It was very entertaining, made a lot of good points about the 24/7 media circus and baseless fearmongering and was a nice call for unity.

I'm glad he did it but it didn't accomplish a goddam thing and we knew it wouldn't. The dickheads are still out there for us to deal with.

We'll be a hearing a lot about the rally for days, I think. Oughta be fun.

Season Of The Witch

I took Vintage clips from the 1921 film called Haxan Witchcraft Through The Ages and added Donovan's Season Of The Witch on top

From the link:

Häxan is a study of how superstition and the misunderstanding of diseases and mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts.

Hmmmmm...change "diseases and mental illness" to "reality" and it sounds like Häxan=Repugs.

No offense to actual witches is intended.

Donovan ~ Season Of The Witch

Thanks to muscarines, UK.

Christ ...

Digby:

ABC has hired Andrew Breitbart and his lying little helper Dana Loesch to do election night coverage. Seriously.

...

Speechless ...