It didn’t help my mood that my righteous indignation almost got me & my beau killed by an elite mob.
So, I’m playing WoW last night, and a conversation starts up in my guild about the upcoming election. I shit you not: there were two people who vehemently insisted that they wouldn’t vote for someone named Barack Hussein Obama. They had no other beef with him — just his fuckin’ name. The argument was that his name made him an inappropriate representative of our fair country. Get this – the primary idiot on that side of the debate said that it was wrong for us to vote in a man that bore the names of two of the US’ worst enemies. Chalk up another stupid bastard that can’t tell the difference between Obama and Osama.
“Besides, George W. Bush sounds better.”
Hey genius – GW isn’t in the running. There’s that silly 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, you see.
I was seriously considering strangling myself with my own hair, I was so appalled.
What disappointed me even more is that the guild I belong to is GLBT-friendly, and GLBT dominant. John McCain isn’t exactly notoriously kind to this community.
From the Human Rights Campaign’s web site —
A Record of Opposing the Interests of GLBT Americans
OPPOSED Ending Discrimination Against GLBT Americans in the Workplace. Senator McCain cast a deciding vote against the federal Employment Non Discrimination Act.
OPPOSED Protecting GLBT Americans from Hate Crimes. Senator McCain voted three times against expanding the federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation.
PROPONENT of Discriminatory Military Policy. Senator McCain supports Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and does not believe that gays should serve in the military.
OPPONENT of Equal Benefits for Same-Sex Couples. Senator McCain voted for the Defense of Marriage Act which prohibits same-sex couples from receiving federal rights and benefits in any state.
ACTIVELY SUPPORTED State Ban on Domestic Partnerships. Senator McCain campaigned for a ban on same-sex relationship recognition in his home state of Arizona – even appearing in a campaign television ad.
SUPPORTED the Confirmation of Anti-GLBT Equality Judges. Senator McCain voted to confirm President Bush’s judicial nominees who had taken anti-GLBT positions. He has pointed to Justice Samuel Alito as a role model for future Supreme Court appointments.
SUPPORTED a Discriminatory HIV/AIDS Policy. Senator McCain supported a Jesse Helms strategy to cut off funding for prevention efforts aimed at the gay community and voted to prohibit foreign nationals with HIV from immigrating to the United States.
(More detailed information can be found here,
here,
here, and here.)
Then there’s the Concord High School incident.
But hey — his name sure is a lot more Ah-mer-i-kan than Barack Hussein Obama.
I have very, very few regrets in this life, and one of them is that I didn’t see ’98s Cabaret revivial. I had no money, you see. In hindsight, I realize I should have just sold a kidney.
I should have made the pilgrimage to see Threepenny Opera a few years back, too.
*grunt*
… so I shall close the evening by posting a picture of my girl Victoria in a pair of fucking great shoes.
Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “You’re getting a little thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” McCain’s excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.
As it turns out, even the lighter side of Dick Cheney can prompt major disapproval. As Sheryl Stolberg reported this morning, the vice president elicited a wave of laughter from the National Press Club on Monday by cracking a joke about his extended family, which includes a tie to Senator Barack Obama:
“So we had Cheneys on both sides of the family — and we don’t even live in West Virginia,” the vice president deadpanned […] “You can say these things when you’re not running for re-election.”
Charming guy. You can read all about it here.
But then, we knew he was a compassionate and caring man already, didn’t we? His love and respect for Americans knows no bounds.
From Mojoblog, posted by Stephanie Mencimer:
Boy, did I get an earful from my mother this weekend! Not because I haven’t come to visit lately, but because the president has. My parents live in Park City, Utah, which last week played host for a few hours to George W. Bush. When I spoke to my mom on Saturday, she was still fuming that Bush had some nerve coming to her town, mucking up traffic, forcing kids to stay out of school, scaring people with helicopters, and then sticking the local taxpayers with $30,000 in security costs, all so Bush can raise money for John McCain, who is afraid to be seen in public with him. What really irked my mom was that just two days after Memorial Day, not a second of Bush’s visit involved paying a brief sympathy call to one of the many families in Utah who’ve lost loved ones in Iraq. Instead, Bush spent his time at the vacation manse of Mitt Romney, chatting up people who’d paid $35,000 a piece to get in the door.
My mom, admittedly a huge Hillary Clinton supporter, was practically spitting as she described how Bush and his enormous entourage that included no fewer than five military helicopters not only failed to meet a single non-donating peon during his visit, but also occupied 80 rooms at the exclusive Stein Erikson Lodge in Deer Valley, where suites even in the off-season will set you back $600 a night. The lodge is the most expensive, swanky resort in all of Park City, with twice-daily maid service, European spa offerings, four-star restaurants, and access to many mountain bike trails.
I was afraid to tell her that the taxpayers would also be footing the bill for the lodge stay. Technically, campaigns are supposed to reimburse the government for the expenses and the $60,000 an hour it costs Air Force One to ferry the president to a political fundraiser, but Bush has gotten around this by sticking a few official visits into the schedule in the vicinity of the fundraiser. The “official business” Bush conducted in Utah was a courtesy call to the new president of the Mormon Church, which lasted about a nanosecond.
By comparison, my mom recalled, Bill Clinton, who came twice to Park City during his last term, always got out and shook a few hands wherever he went. Hillary even went skiing. Of course, Mom acknowledged that was before 9/11, but still, she said, the fact that during his taxpayer-funded visit, Bush couldn’t find ten minutes to meet with regular people or even to stop in to visit the local school kids was simply unforgivable.
My mom wasn’t the only Park City-ite who wasn’t thrilled about the president’s visit. Bush has made four trips to Utah during his presidency, more than any other president in history, in large part because it’s one of the few places in the country where lots of people actually still like him. His approval ratings there are still above 50 percent. But Bush picked a bad spot for a fundraiser. Park City is the rare speck of blue in a state that’s virtually all red. Not only was he greeted with protests and middle-fingers along the motorcade route, but when Summit County Commissioner Sally Elliot, a Democrat, learned how much his visit was going to cost the local taxpayers, she grudgingly told the county sheriff to go ahead and protect the president, saying, “Frankly, I don’t care if he lives or dies. Don’t let him die in Summit County.”
Who’ll Unplug Big Media? Stay Tuned
By Robert W. McChesney & John Nichols
On a Thursday in mid-May, the Senate did something that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. Led by Democrat Byron Dorgan, the senators–Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives–gave Rupert Murdoch and his fellow media moguls the sort of slap that masters of the universe don’t expect from mere mortals on Capitol Hill. With a voice vote that confirmed the near-unanimous sentiment of senators who had heard from hundreds of thousands of Americans demanding that they act, the legislators moved to nullify an FCC attempt to permit a radical form of media consolidation: a rule change designed to permit one corporation to own daily and weekly newspapers as well as television and radio stations in the same local market. The removal of the historic bar to newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership has long been a top priority of Big Media. They want to dramatically increase revenues by buying up major media properties in American cities, shutting down competing newsrooms and creating a one-size-fits-all local discourse that’s great for the bottom line but lousy for the communities they are supposed to serve and a nightmare for democracy.
I obviously need a life. I’ve spent the last 20 minutes trying to find a pic of the Boozehammer of Galen. Its not like I need this picture for anything. I just got sidetracked.
