October Surpriseish

I truly don’t know what to make of this.  It’s a stunner:

Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, “impetuous” Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Net effect? [Presume that U.S. Americans forget that a Republican Administration has failed to catch Public Enemy No. 1 in seven years. Big leap, I know.] Anyway, these goons are basically saying that they want U.S. America to elect the Geezer. So, naturally, patriotic Americans will thus vote for Black Eagle, because who wants to vote the way terrorists want? But Barry’s a [insert all absolute falsehoods here], as EVERYBODY KNOWS. So you can’t vote for him.

Bob Barr? Your time to shine.

56 Comments

Atrios reminds us of this, from January 2008 Businessweek:

Bloomberg’s Historic Run

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will enter the Presidential race in February, after it becomes clear which nominees will get the nod from the major parties. His multiple billions and organization will impress voters—and stun rivals. He’ll look like the most viable third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt. But Bloomberg will come up short, as he comes in for withering attacks from both Democrats and Republicans. He and Clinton will split more than 50% of the votes, but Arizona’s maverick senator, John McCain, will end up the country’s next President.

Yeeeesssss… Bob Barr, shine. White Georgian hetero men, don’t vote for McCain… vote for the home-stater… (and thus tip the election in Georgia to Unicorn…. surrender the 15 EVs in the event of Va./N.C. Hope FAIL….)

@ManchuCandidate: But (as Duncan would say) they’re Very Serious People.

I’m sorry, but their logic is bass-ackwards and it’s only going to make some right-wingnut to set off his own home-growns, so that everyone will elect McCain “and then he’ll show ’em who’s boss.” There are too many people who secretly want to find actual terrorists on their block, just to be able to kick their asses. This sounds like an End-Timer wrote it.

@RomeGirl: Well, Romegirl, if there is a false-flag terrorist attack, its not gonna be some wingnut cowboys doing it, its gonna be Poppy’s and Rummy’s boys in the CIA and Army special ops, or maybe more likely Cheney’s boys in Blackwater, hell, he is evil enough to do it all alone and Blackwater IS a wingnut cowboy outfit. These really are interesting times.

Look, there goes another engine, and the flames are so bright, this is the most interesting flight I have ever had.

As appropriate a time as any to see if this has made the rounds yet.

I won’t sink to the level of the Republican Party and suggest to people that this endorsement means that they should vote for teh unicorn. I promise.

Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? I’m having the entire article written on my forehead in indelible ink.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: You’d have to shrink it down to like 8pt to get it all to fit, unless you’re all forehead. I’m all for head, myself (Sorry!!)

@drinkyclown: Note to self: After installing rimshot sound effect, add “wah-wah-wahhhhh” button.

@nojo: And a “bow chikka bow” loop for Friday nights.

@drinkyclown:

Hm, I guess you’re right. I’ll just have to print it on the OTHER head. I could use 14 point type there.

Heh.

@Prommie: I dunno, dude. Those crowds at the M/P rallies have really scared the shit out of me.

@RomeGirl: Oh, they scare me too, but they’re not high-functioning enough to do anything but maybe lynch the local librarian or newspaper editor, or egg the house of any “out” democrats in their county, I don’t think they would really even want to go after teh blacks any more, its not like a white man can march into the black neighborhood and everyone averts their eyes these days. I would not want to be the one semi-tolerated gay dude in the holler, though.

But Cheney, he scares me, and he would do it. In a second.

Four years ago Kerry got the Al-Qaeda endorsement. That cost him a few points. This can only help the Big O.

@Comandante Agi: Welcome stranger, dive in.

I’m fascinated right now by the state of the country, and the state of the punditocracy, and even the state of the stinkers.

There’s no “story of the day” anymore. The news cycle is in turmoil. Too much is going on too fast. Stories that would have dominated for days or weeks are drowned out the very same day by stories that would have dominated for weeks or months, and the next day, the media seems lost and behind the curve, commenters and pundits have become more irrelevant than I have ever seen, because by the time anyone can come up with a thoughtful comment or analysis, its old news, even if they manage to do it the same day as the news they are commenting on.

Can anyone tell me, right now, tonight, what is the big story? Palin’s wardrobe? The continuing financial implosion? Massive anthrax hoax? That would have dominated, in an ordinary news cycle. Police departments preparing for riots election night? Obama’s grandma? The Al Queada endorsement of McCain (silly story, they are reporting on the al queada version of Free Republic’s message board shit), Robocalls, the polls, what, what is it? The collapse of our retail economy, which is gonna really really hurt main street in the next few months? UFOs, voter fraud, diebold machines, I am lost.

What the fuck is going on? Where are we, and what are we doing in this basket?

@Promnight: I would say SOCIALISM! SOCIALISM! SOCIALISM! I think PG and Talibunny are just going to keep saying it until it sticks, or until Nov. 4, whichever comes first. Of course ignoring their own socialist actions and views (bailouts and ‘I taxed oil company profits and spread money around to the citizens of my state’ – HELLO MEDIA – CAN SOMEONE BRING THAT UP?).

SOCIALIST 2008=FLIP-FLOPPER 2004

@homofascist: To all my fellow Stinquers. Sorry, those all caps were kind of harsh. I could edit them out, but I do need to raise my voice from time to time.

@homofascist: Meh, I just see it as a failing campaign tactic, its not getting anywhere at all, except in exciting the base, the 30 % they are gonna get anyway.

@Promnight: I would tend to agree. I don’t think it is going to work either (well, I hope not), but I think they are going to just push that theme like crazy. I guess they figured out having focus is a good thing. Although they will probably change tomorrow.

@Promnight: We’re living in Compressed Time right now. Over the summer I could take a reasonable guess at tomorrow’s conversation, and write ahead of the curve. Past couple of months it’s been a crapshoot.

I still have extensive notes towards a piece about Psychogeezer’s father-in-law — “John McCain’s Blood Money” — that I never got around to writing because events took a different direction. I also have an unfinished piece called “Headines from the Future” (“7/14/09: Sarah Palin sworn in as nation’s 46th President following tragic motocross mishap”) that wasn’t needed because Charlie Gibson did my work for me.

Good news? It’ll be over in two weeks. Then we’ll go back to making shit up.

@homofascist: To me the big story is the story which, if you mention it, makes you a paranoid alarmist. Its connected to the US troops on active duty in the US story, and the stories about police departments preparing for civil unrest. Its something being encouraged and incited by the socialist meme, the acorn-voter fraud meme, and the muslim-terrorist meme, all of which means its entirely being stoked by the McCain campaign.

That story is, and I guess its not a story yet, but still, I smell it, there will be white riots at the election of a black president. McCain is reaping a whirlwind in his desperate attempts to push all the buttons that worked in the past, racism, anti-intellectual resentment of elites, wild allegations of socialism(code for communism, they say socialism but then they mention Marx and Lennin), muslim terrorist anti-americanism, and on top of it all, religious hysteria. And the final, incendiary fuel on this fire of hate he is stoking is the meme of voter fraud, building on something Rove was working on for years with his politicization of the justice department, trying to create the idea that inner city voter’s rights campaigns are vote fraud operations. This gives the haters moral justification for the violence in their hearts.

I am not predicting a civil war, but I think there will be little crytalnatchts in the heartland and the backwaters as the pigfuckers go insane from the idea of a president Barack Obama, and muslim-owned gas stations and convenience stores and immigrant communities and people with brown skin who celebrate too openly in the wrong places will be in danger. Our economy is looking like Wiemar Germany’s, and the republicans in their desperation are acting like brownshirts.

I don’t think we are their, on the brink, that anything will come of it, but their will be violence.

And I think in the end it will pull the mask off the far-right religious racist conservative movement and reveal it, to the horror of the vast majority of americans, and in the end, do more, far far more damage to what is now called “conservatism” than merely losing an election by a landslide.

But it won’t be pretty. I’d compare it to the violence of the early and mid-sixties during the civil rights movement, when the violence of the church bombers and murderers and the photos of the firehoses in Montgomery did more to further the cause of civil rights than any of the racist terrorists could have dreamed, as they destroyed their cause with every act of violence and repression.

These people are crazy, dumb, and angry. As Powell said, Obama’s election would be transformative, that means change, big change, and its change that the pigfuckers fear and hate and their frustration, rage, fear, and inherent violent tendencies, will combine to result in ugliness.

I just cannot believe that there will not be more than a few who think its time to get out those guns they worship, that they will think this is the moment they always fantascized about, why they have and love the guns in the first place.

@Promnight:
I’d say that based on history, much of what you wrote is well founded.

There will be blood. How much is just a guess.

That being said, the bitterz scare the Repub leadership even more than they do the Dems or they wouldn’t be trying to ride the Thought Challenged Tiger every two years.

What’s scaring them even more is that the bitterz are pointing the finger at the Repubs. They hate the Repubs more than they hate the brothers because they finally figured out who sold them out.

@Promnight: I think the ACORN/voter fraud story is laying the foundation for exactly this kind of thing should Obama win. There will be those loud voices that will scream about a stolen election, somehow bridging the gap between fake registration forms and actual voter fraud (but of course ignoring actual instances of Republican vote tampering…Ohio 2004, cough, cough).

I was thinking a little about this today, and it isn’t fully formed, but it seems to me that the problem is that Democrats want to think about the electorate as being smart and informed. They think that ‘the people’ will be able to listen to and comprehend complex explanations about their ideas on taxes or health care, or their relationships with Bill Ayers or Rev. Wright. And some do, of course, but it takes time and investment. Republicans however know that a large number of the electorate are stupid, whether by sheltered upbringings or poor education or ingrained prejudices or religious brain-washing. They live on soundbites and no follow up, so all you need to do is throw out some crazy words like “terrorist” or “muslim” or “socialist” and if you can trigger the fear reflex in enough of the dumb ones, you win.

And with that, I am going to go watch some gay porn on the internet.

@Promnight: OK, here’s the story: We gots a right-wing old geezer, teamed with a far-right rabble-rouser nutjob, vs a right-center media idol teamed with a right-center get ‘er done Congressional insider.
So much for the supposed “leaders”. Whatever they say, it’s just pissing in the wind. Because:
What we also gots is a real situation where, for the first time since the late thirties, the really viable path to help the country and the world economy through the hard time to come is some variant of Socialism.
My heart sings.

@Promnight: No. There will be stunned silence. Violent incidents will be few.

I don’t say this out of heightened expectations for the pigfuckers. “McCain Losing” has been the theme of the past ten days. Another thirteen days of ten-point leads, they’ll have had plenty of time to accept their loss.

It’s the alternative that could get ugly: Obama goes into Election Day with that commanding lead, but as the night closes McCain is the winner. Then you have L.A. 1992 writ large. If the Republicans steal the election — and they’re trying as hard as they can — God save the Republic.

@homofascist: And with that, I am going to go watch some gay porn on the internet.

Ooh, can I come too?

@homofascist: ACORN ceases to be a story November 5. Everyone except the deluded knows it’s a sham, and Rupert’s going to drop it once the results are in. The mob will continue yammering about it at RedState and such, of course, but they won’t find support from their favorite cable channel.

@nojo: Even your god won’t save the Republic, if that happens.
I’m ready for both eventualities, and will participate wholeheartedly in either: Dancing in the Streets, or Burn, Baby, Burn. Either way, I’m in 100%.

@Ewalda: 1965 or 1967, take yer pick. Even if it’s Winter of Love, I don’t think we who have been suffering through this all year are prepared for the paradigm shift that’s coming. This isn’t just our candidate winning — this is the United States doing something that is simply impossible.

And then Barry will do something in February that pisses us off, and it’ll be back to normal.

@BRB: Feel free – I know I just did.

Waaaaaaaaa waaaaaaaaaaa waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

@nojo: I agree with your prediction. I’ve got plans to go watch returns with my ghey mafia in an industrial/gentrifying SF neighborhood that has historically been African-American shipyard worker area. If the Unicorn wins, the gheyz and faghagz and Bayview-Hunters Point blacks will be dancing in the streets. And if McCain steals the election, we will be marching up Third Street with pitchforks, guns, and cellphones in hand. Promnight, that’s what the police and the military are getting ready for. They’re not getting ready for the pig-fuckers to kill the Sikh motel and 7-11 owners in rural Nebraska. They’re getting ready for the pissed off queens and blacks and browns and thinking whites to finally scream enough is enough.

And that’s what really gets me trembling in fear and wakes me up at 3 a.m. That we’re all just puppets in a little play, with the outcome preordained, and we’re spinning our little puppet wheels.

@Promnight: I hope you’re right, that the so-called purveyors of “news” are in disarray. I think you’re right, and I love you for telling us about your analysis.

@Ewalda: Your heart sings. Mine too. Maybe we will have outwitted the unspeakable shitheads. But whether we do or no, I’m not so dumb, and neither are you, as to duke it out with any holdout, in front of my house.

@Promnight: I think the backlash will not be as apocalytic as your imaginings, but I read this site religiously because I love your mind and the minds of the “saving remnant” who comment here. Tonight I am fuelled by Guinness and Pinot Grigio, which I have to quit, very soon, before Alcohol pitches me into deep withdrawal , but I salute your courage in speaking your mind.

@nojo: I disagree, sadly. The RW needs lumber to fuel its fire, and the single word talking points are ready made for their opposition noise. Remember the Vince Foster Murder meme? That will be a quaint memory.

Hanging with Anonymous Electoral Observer two steps back from this makes me mopey, not hopey. I need Yoda Pez to convince me that Barry hasn’t peaked too soon.

@SFL: Heh, “Motel Sikhs”: was that inentional?

People, people, remember: He is our candidate. His election is happening here in the US. It might provoke bad reactions but it is nevertheless happening. And if it’s a landslide, as it seems to be shaping up to be, not even Karl Rove can steal it. Please don’t forget, the US electorate is doing an impossible thing and we should be proud to be part of it. This is not happening in the UK, or the EU, or the PU. It’s happening here.

I think the bigger problem might well be trying to stop the Democrats stealing the victory to go off on their usual dumb tangents.

Meanwhile. Yes. I haz Hope.

@nabisco: Motel Sikhs. Excellent.

@nojo: I have always said I want him to win out of spite, because it will make pigfuckers’ heads explode, and not because I hear him saying anything particularly liberal or progressive. But you never know, noone is allowed to be openly progressive and run for national office, at least until after he gets elected, so maybe, maybe.

OK, I found this at Brand W, but its so good, it just says it all about the right wingers, guns, anger, selfishness, lies, violence, its all there:

http://www.postindependent.com/article/20081023/VALLEYNEWS/810229957/1001

Someone trying to merge in front of him, huh, he ain’t no SOCIALIST, he rejects all forms of cooperative activity. Its every man for himself, I got mine and fuck you, dammit, and thank God we got guns. If he pulls a gun to protect his place in traffic, whats he gonna do when a socialist negro gets elected and sends hordes of jackbooted negro goons to take his paycheck, guns, and daughters?

@Prommie: I think the whole country is a hair’s breadth away from open streetfighting at this point.

@Prommie: Meh. SoCal invented road rage.

There will be isolated incidents, particularly in the Pigfucker Precincts, but I don’t see anything approaching open civil war if Barry wins. It’s not optimism on my part — I just don’t feel it.

But hey, let’s give it another week. The final days might yet be the End Times.

@nojo: Marie Cocco at WaPo thinks that early voting takes away from some magical civic experience:

There is something magical that happens at the polls on Election Day. It is a renewal of civic culture that marks the first moment of reconciliation after the incivility of a contemporary presidential campaign.”

My response:

No, what it means is A) being subjected to crazies yelling at you at the outer perimeter of where campaigning is not allowed and b) being an easier target in case extremists on either side lose their minds and start mowing down voters. I’m not trying to be paranoid but passions are so high — worse than 2000 or 2004 — that this could happen.

@rptrcub: We’ll go for the obvious and call her Marie Cuckoo.

How many jobs does Ms. Cuckoo work? How easy is it for her to slip away in the middle of a working day and spend a couple of hours in line? Or does Ms. Cuckoo prefer the civic joy of waiting until after 6 p.m., when the lines are that much longer?

You want the magic, declare Election Day a national holiday, or run the election over a weekend. Short of that, my ballot’s on the coffeetable, waiting for me to decipher the propositions.

@nojo: Better mail that mofo quick! Then start checking whether it’s been received.
(Google ‘”your county” registrar’, then check your vote by mail status). Keep checking. If they don’t have it by election day, you’ll need to get in line and file a provisional ballot.
This is for CA only. Don’t know exactly how the other turd states track it, if at all.

@Ewalda: I’m not too worried — goes in the mail Monday latest, and in-town delivery is usually overnight. (Certainly overnight for Netflix up the highway…)

Here’s the odd thing: Neither my neighbor nor I have received the fat Voter Guide with the text of all the propositions. We’ve received the “update” for the light-rail boondoggle, but not the original. But I think the Cal Secretary of State has it online if I get desperate.

@nojo: It’s online. But I’m ever more hostile towards ballot initiatives, and wish the Legislature could just do their fucking job. As I say to the signature guys at the grocery store, “I don’t believe in direct democracy.” I feel the need to vote NO on all of them just out of the principal that we shouldn’t have direct democracy. See where it gets us – letting average Plumber Joes decide the level of civil rights for a minority group, force vulnerable pregnant girls get parental consent for abortion, tough-on-crime sounding things that fuck over community groups and take a billion out of the general fund, etc.

@SanFranLefty: Oregon used to pride itself on introducing initiatives back before the Great War, but I agree — the system is so gamed by both sides that it takes an hour to figure out what’s actually on the table.

I’m inclined to vote No on everything, but even that might be gamed, the way the measures are worded. Conscientiousness is my burden.

@SanFranLefty: I’m with you. This whole proposition concept gave the representative govt in Sacramento a free ride to do absolutely nothing and then shove it off onto the ballot initiative process.
The ballot initiative process consists of special interests of whatever stripe coming up with some plain-vanilla name for their self-serving ballot initiative, then either paying dolts, or finding old dolts with nothing better to do, to sit outside of the local Safeway to get sigs, thence to spend obscene amounts of money on misleading advertising, to get more dolts to vote for their propositions.
It is a stupid and wasteful process, and the prime example of this is the proposition that destroyed the education system in California lo those many years ago: Prop 13 .

@Ewalda: We vote by mail here in Oregon, but since the County Clerk’s office is only blocks from my house, I’m hand-delivering mine.
@nojo: You can’t be too careful. They used to pull all kinds of double negative shit in Oklahoma. Cout me a member of the “just say no” to direct democracy crowd. The Founders didn’t go for that for a reason: they knew people were too stupid.

@Mistress Cynica: I’m with you, girl. Reinstitute the poll test.

@SanFranLefty: What is your opinion about teh Calif. wide high speed rail?

@rptrcub: I certainly am in favor of high speed rail in theory but I need to sit down and read the fine print on that prop before I vote yes.

@rptrcub: Nobody will ever ever solve america’s car addiction by coming up with a mass transit alternative. Nope nope nope.

Ya see, its the mode of living that the car created that needs to be eliminated. That would be the suburbs. Suburbs, everyone trying to live in a miniature English country estate, in developments which are always named after English Country Estates, are the problem. Its an inherently inefficient living arrangement. Cities, on the other hand, are very efficient. The automobile created the suburbs. But suburbs sprawl so widely that mass transit will never work, not the way it does in cities, it will just create hubs that people will still travel to and from in cars, it will tinker with the margins of the problem, at ridiculous expense, but will not solve it. The suburbs as a way of life are what has to go, villages, and cities, thats it.

@SanFranLefty: At least it might be useful for California. Our current pipedream down here (besides regular commuter rail in metro Atlanta, if people get over their fear of teh Poors, teh Messicans and teh Blacks) is apparently federally-studied high-speed rail from Atlanta to Chattanooga. Which makes no sense. Birmingham-Atlanta-Greenville-Charlotte-Raleigh-Va.-DC makes more sense to me. That, and Atlanta-Athens (all aboard the Puke Train!) and Atlanta-Savannah.

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